Brilliancy
by glenarvon
Summary: The life and times of Aiden Pearce in a series of one-shots and mini-arcs. In this installment: Chicago's underworld is a non-perfect information game.
1. Quick 2

_**Introductory Notes:**_

**Rating**: Swearing, (above) canon-typical violence, sex and moral ambiguity.

**Story**: A series of one-shots or mini-arcs, focussing mostly on Aiden Pearce. Although the stories are not always interconnected, they all take place in the same continuity.

**Spoilers**: It is highly recommended that you've finished the game WATCH_DOGS prior to reading. I'm sloppy with warnings, but I mostly remember to put them up.

**Updates**: Currently on hiatus.

**Warning**: All views expressed are those of the narrating/POV character. A character can be biased, can be wrong, can be lying, can be stupid, can be confused. For some reason, I keep encountering readers who have problems with the concept.

**Timeline: **One-shots aren't in chronological order. FFnet doesn't let me reorder chapters. You can read the stories at ao3 or use the story chronology page I've set up on tumblr. You can access either of them through my profile.

**Feedback**: Welcome.

**Brilliancy**: completely pompous title, otherwise a chess term referring to a spectacular game.

**Watch_Dogs 2: **My current (pre-release) opinion on WD 2 is as follows: Shrill, uninspired drivel, composed exclusively of things I hate. I want nothing whatsoever to do with it. My post-release opinion: Utter crap.

_Please refrain from telling me how horrible the game and how boring Aiden was. I obviously don't agree._

* * *

**_BRILLIANCY**

**by glenarvon** (formerly moondusted)

* * *

[summary: a driver in an illegal street race gives a — slightly drunken — account of events.]

[this takes place at some indeterminable point during the game, or possibly afterward. probably not during the nicky thing.]

**_Quick 2**

* * *

You think I look banged up? Should've seen me five days ago. Yeah, exactly, when the blackout happened. Yeah, I was there. If you buy me a drink, buddy. No, I'm not too deep in drink already, who do you think I am?

Can you turn down that noise? Why's a bar need a TV anyway? If we liked to watch this shit we'd get drunk at home.

Right, so, well. I'm doing these driving gigs, right? Good money, helluva a lot of fun, too. Yeah, Gerry's sponsoring me. Was, anyway, or something, it's still out. Like, everyone's a bit spooked after that time.

It all started harmlessly enough, like, you know, everyday. Sponsors emptied a bucket of cash over the cops, the _right kind _of cops, so they'd keep their fingers out of it, at least as long as it doesn't get too big. Illegal street races, my ass. It's not really illegal when the cops are in on it, is it? Can't be. These guys are the law. Shit if I know.

Where was I?

Ah, yeah, so there's Swift. Used to call him Swift. Damn good driver, too. Always hated having to drive against him, because it's not one of those ironic nicknames that sometimes happen. Like calling a big guy Tiny, you know? No, this guy's _fast_. Like he's riding a unicorn. No idea, man, that's how he described it, once. Pompous ass. But Swift wasn't in the race, had an accident. Natural cause, obviously, fell into a bullet. Happens a lot around here. Where the hell is my drink?

Got a new driver. I dunno who's backing Swift. Never seen the guy. Probably makes no difference. Got an opening, new driver jumps in, seen it before. These guys don't last, usually. If you aren't in the race from the start, there's probably a reason for it.

New driver has a custom, black Vespid 5.2, so he's not a total noob, anyway. The Vespid's a bit slower than most of the others, but it's a solid car and urban racing isn't all about speed. Just gets you smeared on a wall when you miss a corner.

Never seen this dude around, though. Neither the car. I thought maybe he's from out of town or something, just moved here because of some heat elsewhere. Well, top seats are all already taken in Chicago. I thought, that is. Driver guy's creepy, you know the type. All silent and intense, like he's all above your shit.

No, didn't even see his face clearly. What do you think? I'm not some fag, checking out other guys. Wore a baseball cap and his collar up, though, couldn't see much even if I wanted to…

Ah, drink. Took you long enough. What've you doing? Growing grapes?

_Pissing in it. _

Haha fucking ha. I know where you live, buddy.

Creepy driver guy just hangs around before the race starts, glued to his phone, spares us all no look.

Earlier that day, Gerry's taken me aside to tell me something's up tonight, looked worried, Gerry did. Never seen him look like that, but I don't know any of Gerry's business and it's much healthier that way, too. He pays my bills, I drive for him, good deals all around.

So Gerry's worried. After Swift, I get that. Because it's not enough, it starts to rain. It's never a bad race until it rains. I've been there. Good thing this global warming shit means we barely get any ice on the road anymore. Drivers die like flies, then. Sort of the point, come to think of it. Like darwinism.

We draw lots for starting places. Stupid antiquated way, but no one ever listens to us, down in the mud, right? Right.

I get lucky. It's so much easier starting from the front, let me tell you. Race kicks off on the freeway, good early stretch, gives you some decent speed before you get your head in the game on the city streets. Three cars wide, five deep.

So, pole position's always good. Gives you an edge. You've only got two other guys to worry about for the start and you can leave them right behind you if you're fast enough. After that, all you've got to do is ride it home.

The new guy draws a position far behind. Like second to last row, but my lane. He's still too good to say anything, though. I hope he comes home without his teeth.

Just saying! I can't stand those arrogant pricks.

Do you even know how urban races work? Do you? Buy me another and I'll explain it you. I'll use small words, too, so you can follow me. So. Drink!

Anyway, urban races. They don't have like a course or anything. Couldn't mark it on the city streets. Instead, you'll get a start point and an end point, how you get from one to the other's all your own problem. Means you've got to have drivers with a bit of brain, too. You need to know where you're going beforehand, then get there.

Usually, there's like one or two good routes, on the big streets, but of course that's also where traffic is thickest so drivers try not to pack that closely.

Aaaand there's my drink. You know, it looks a bit like piss.

_Why's that, you recon?_

Shut up. Not getting a rise out of me so easily.

I get off on a good start, field well behind me before we dive into the city. Traffic's thick, though, can't go as fast as I like to, need to adjust my course, too. Got blocked on my preferred route, some useless bit of road construction popping up out of nowhere. City should post about these on their website, would make life so much easier. Got two of the others tailing me, too, hanging out in my slipstream. Lost sight of the black Vespid for a bit there.

When I see it again, it's flying. I'm not shitting you! I didn't say it grew wings, damn! Comes over a bridge from the right, must have taken one hell of a detour just to get there that way. Bridge is getting down and I'm not actually paying it any attention because I'm weaving through traffic at nearly 100mph, heading for the traffic lights. You know, how you get like one tiny moment when the crossroads is empty? Because one's already on red and the others haven't sped up yet? That's my opening and I'm going to be hitting that crossroads perfectly.

But then the Vespid jumps the fucking open bridge, lands in the middle of the crossroads, it makes a tight little spin, that's not even drift, man, fucking car turns like a ballet dancer, brakes howling and the tyres smearing all over the asphalt and it shoots down the lane in _my _fucking opening, right ahead of me.

Except, that's when the traffic lights go crazy and everyone's rushing the crossroads from all directions! One of the fuckers catches my back fender and shoves me into one of these ridiculous compact cars. It's a blue car, I'll remember that forever. Weird. Little fucker's bad enough to do some damage, put a bad dent in my ride. Bumped my elbow.

On the plus side, lost the slipstream guys in the pileup.

But I can't wait it out, not now. I don't even look back. Every man for himself and all that. I still see that damn Vespid's taillights just ahead of me. My car's faster than that, I know. I step on the gas and I love my car! Beautiful 336-TT. Shoots like lightning!

God, _no_ that's not a euphemism! What are you? Gay?

It takes a bit to catch up with that fucker. He's going for the direct way, I can tell. Not a whole lot to worry about for a bit. Just two more crossroads before we are down in Brandon Docks. Gives me a moment to think, that.

What was I thinking, you ask?

Ha ha, yeah, I know how to do that. You know, if you don't want to hear anymore, I'm good just drinking in silence…

See, not so hard. Here we go.

So Brandon Docks means we are now pretty close to the finish line. And if you've ever been down there, you know there are far less good routes left. During the day, you could cut through company premises, but they're all locked up tight at night. Would bring the cops down on us, so no one does that sort of shit. God-fucking-damn Vespid and it's asshole driver do it, though, twice. Ass. Hole.

But I'll get to that. I was telling you what I noticed. You see, because of what it's like and because it's pretty close to the finish, everyone left in the game comes back together. You see all the fuckers again you've lost in the city, trying to come back in in front of you.

This time. This one fucking time, there's just the Vespid. And me, of course. There's _no one else. _Think on that for a moment. Because I did. I mean, there's always _some _loss along the way. Never been in a race where everyone's made it. But I sure as hell were never in the race where it's just two guys.

I finally catch up to the Vespid. Up close, car looks pretty wasted, messed up bumper and trailing a bit of dark smoke. It's not on fire, seen this before, this car's not quite breaking down yet. Probably cost a shitload to fix later, though.

I catch up, just in time for the next traffic light. And you know what happens? You know? The _same fucking thing! _Thing malfunctions big time and all the cars of four directions pile up on me while the Vespid gets clear just about. It's fewer cars here than before, so I managed to get through, screaming metal on metal and all. Something blows up, I can see it my rear-view mirror. Some poor fucker's really not having a good day back there.

The Vespid's fishtailing a bit. My guess is, some axis deformation throwing it off-kilter and that's my chance, right there. All weight back on the gas, full throttle and I finally get even with the Vespid. I'm on the left lane, could go bad quickly if there's oncoming traffic. I don't have a whole lot of options to evade. Dammit, I think, if I go out, I'll just swipe this stupid Vespid off the road with me. Looks like my car can take the hit better than his, anyway. Nothing comes. In hindsight, I should have taken the chance, but can't help it now.

I'm finally in front. At this point, I can't be sure I'm really in the lead, but I'm good. I made good time, not a lot of waste along the way other then the weird crossroads shit and that little detour before, nothing I can't catch.

The Vespid can't keep up at this point, I can tell it tries for a moment, fishtails harder and then begins to fall back. I catch it swerve to the right, though, and I think it's about to crash into one of the premise gates, but the damn thing just swings open!

You know, I swallow a lot of coincidence. I've never being paid enough to worry about it, but this shit? Traffic lights, I get. Damn things malfunction all the time, but private companies keep their security tighter than that. I still don't get it, no idea what was going on that night.

At the time, I can't really waste much time on it, either. Street's winding ahead of me, pretty damn narrow so I better get my head back there, before some useless concrete boulder materialises in front of me.

So, I'm actually dumb enough to think I've made it. Half a mile to the finish, if I could go by beeline, but it's still pretty good and no sight of any competition.

That is, you guessed it, until the black Vespid from hell just comes out of nowhere, from between staked containers. I almost didn't see it. It's broken most of it's lights. It slithers right in front of me and accelerates away and I let it go because I'm kind of in shock. Not like I couldn't catch it or anything.

I'm not an idiot, either. So next time the little motherfucker tries the gate thing, I think to myself _fuck it _and I just glue myself to his tail. Turns out to be a middling good idea. It's gravel paths there and the Vespid's got the better grip on those and I have no interest in smashing into a steel container at full speed. Bad enough I still got an aching elbow from that first collision.

For now, I just keep up, Vespid goes where I want to and I know we've got another bit of straight street where I can take it no problem. Thing is, as we're heading back there, the gate begins to close right in front of me. Vespid through, gate closing. Scratched my car up pretty bad on all sides, nearly got stuck, too. Could have torn a tyre on the things and that would've been it for me.

Vespid's used the chance to gain some distance and it's down to the last bit, one more corner and the finish line. Never deserved it better than this one, seriously.

Next drink. I need another drink for that part. Seriously.

Because next thing that happens is, my phone stars vibrating. Don't laugh at me! I keep the thing in my back-pocket. I didn't think of it! No one I know is dumb enough to call when I'm in a race. I'd go find them and make them eat their phones.

_Did you enjoy getting your ass vibed?_

Give me the drink and piss the fuck off!

Distracted the hell out of me, and no, _not _the hell _that way,_ but there is that turn coming up and I kind of get my priorities backward, because it's like this race is haunted, right. Can pull your cool out right under your feet. So I'm angling for the phone and I've only got one hand on the wheel and I should have one on the handbrake because that corner's a mean motherfucker all its own.

I crash into a site fence. Doesn't do much new damage, but tangles me up anyway. I bring the car back on the road and I think that I could still catch the black Vespid. It doesn't get much straight speed and I can still catch up to it.

And yes, my friend, that's when the blackout hit. And I mean _hit. _CtOS box just blows up right at my side, sparks flying and shit. You know that sound that electricity makes? Like a whip. Gonna dream of that for a while. Brandon Docks goes pitch-black from one moment to the next, with just the flying sparks all around.

And like, some little shit of an idiot put up some tanks _right _by the damn box. Shit, I could have died right there…

Explosion gets hold of my car and throws it around. Can't see straight and shit's going down fucking fast, man. I crash into something hard and I've got the time to think that this is bad, it's the bad one.

Smells like burning rubber.

My head hits the steering wheel and I go out like the fucking lights.

In the end, I _walk _to the finish line. Isn't far and everyone's a bit confused by that point. Juice still isn't there and as you know, took like a day for it, fire did some damage to the net or something. So everything looks pretty eerie, lit by just phone-flashlights and cars.

The Vespid's smouldering on it's own just behind the finish and the driver faces off against some of the sponsors. Gerry's there, too. Gives me one hell of an evil eye. But what the hell was I supposed to do? It was like driving against the whole damn city!

"It's an illegal street race," the driver pointed out, gravelly voiced all level and shit, like he isn't talking to big time mob money right there. "Which rules did I break?"

The sponsors don't have much of a good argument for that. Looking around, it's what I thought. I'm the only other driver in the finish at all, even if I come without my car.

I heard from some of the others. One got lost on a detour, but all of the others had some freak accidents. Traffic lights, road blockers, evil bridges. One got blown to hell by a rupturing steam pipe. And I mean that literally. Guys like us, we don't get to go to Heaven.

Technically, there are no rules against winning because your opponents all suffer weird accidents. Not like he's caused them, right? Or, yeah, well. Wake up and smell the bullshit. Race was rigged from the start, mark my words.

"I win?" driver asshole asks, all calm-like. He knows he has. What you gonna tell him? No, shit, obviously one of those who didn't make it won? Not like they couldn't force exactly that kind of decision, but it'd, well, it'd look bad. Driver asshole's right, there aren't _rules _as such, but gunning him down now would make everyone look like sour losers, especially in front of the others.

Gerry looks like he's about to tear him a new one, but doesn't. Looks like backing down from where I'm standing, but I've never seen Gerry do that, so it must've been something else. Gerry doesn't get _stared down. _

"If this is your first _and_ last race," Gerry concedes.

"Don't do me any favours," driver asshole says.

"Yeah yeah, get outta here before I change my mind."

He doesn't right away. Pulls one hand from his pocket, calls someone.

I've managed to hobble closer. Gerry's going to give me an earful, and then he'll wait until I'm all healed up to punch me out again, I just know it. Couldn't he take it out on the deserving party?

Driver catches my gaze. Must have stared at him, couldn't help it. What the fuck was wrong with this guy? What the hell _is he? _Looks a bit familiar, now that I'm looking straight at him. Seen him around? I'm not sure, I'm _still _not sure. I'd remember him.

"Not bad," he tells me, wandering past, puts the phone to his ear and then dismisses me completely. Arrogant… fucking…asshole _motherfucker. _Yes, despite the damn compliment. That was just driving the point home! How stupid are you?

I hear a bit of the conversation he has on the phone. Kind of reassuring he's like that to everyone, right?

_"That's what you get. You wanted me to win the race, I won the race. No thanks to your backmarker. — No, I don't work for 'shits and giggles', Jordi. — Oh, did I? As long as you can't prove it, it's not a freebie."_

So that's it. My story of the urban blackout race. Bit of a misnomer, if you ask me. Just got a blackout at the end, like a finale or something.

Got a concussion and I'm out of a job, more than likely, because Gerry's all kinds of pissed. All the others are, too. I'm not going to work in this town again. Which is funny, isn't? Because I'm like the only one who even got to the finish, the others don't get nearly as much flag. Like it's worse to trip on the last step. And don't go telling me I wasn't tripped. That was some fucked up shit going on right there…

_Holyshitthat'shim!_ On the news! Turn it up, will you? I need to hear this!

He's the… ? Fuuck. Oh god, oh shit. I definitely need another drink now. I was driving against _him? _Damn… I bet Gerry's relieved he didn't try him, though. Gotta gloat about this later, definitely going to be worth it.

Still, makes you wonder, what that race could've been like? How much _worse_ it could've been? I play poker with some Fixers sometimes, now there are guys with _true_ horror stories, I swear.

* * *

_End of _Quick 2_

* * *

**Reference: **Quick _8 _are the fastest 8 in a drag race.

**Author's Note: **I don't know anything about motorsports. I know very little about cars. I made 'urban street racing' up, but it seems like a viable way to do it.

_It was fun writing in this way (I've wanted to try it in forever, but didn't have a good scenario until now.) Thank you for reading! I hope you had some fun doing that!_

* * *

**Revised on 31/May/2015**


	2. Quaint Old World

**Notes:** Phone design taken from LG Flutter Concept Phone.

The representation of this future world owes a great deal to the works of Ken MacLeod (The Execution Channel and Intrusion, particularly) and maybe a little bit to Richard K. Morgan's books Market Forces and Black Man/Thirteen. Very little of that actually makes it into the story, but this is how I envisioned it. Things were left intentionally vague and as snap-shots.

* * *

_[this takes place roughly twenty-five years after the events of the main game]_

**_Quaint Old World**

* * *

A new car is parked outside the cabin, pristinely clean and ecologically small. It looks like a toy beside a mud-smeared off-road motorcycle leaning closer to the cabin and partially covered up against the weather. The last model to still be sold with a combustion engine, making the bike heavier than newer models, but with more power behind it.

Two men are sitting on a small table in a cabin. One still young, the other older, greying with a gaunt face and hair shot through with silvery grey. Despite this, there is some resemblance, not quite striking, but visible, in the play of light and shadow and more so, in the way they move.

There is no tablecloth, because it hasn't occurred to the older to waste time on such draperies. Not that he _hasn't _time, but it doesn't occur anyway. He has served coffee, though, and its scent and varied flavour lent the moment unexpected tranquility.

The sun is high in the air, casting golden autumn light through the small windows of the cabin and it's equally small, tidy interior.

"There is no middle ground anymore," the older one says. "There is _off the grid _and _in the system._ No wriggle room, no grey spaces." He pauses for a moment, considers. "No backdoors, either."

The younger one looks around the room, at the workbench in the corner, strewn now as well as ever with dissembled high-tech gadgets, lurking in the dark with the work-light turned off. He knows the electricity is supplied by a generator and the fuel delivered by the old owner of the local pub every month. An oven, pitched-black, charred metal disperses heat from a wood-fire, more than enough to warm the cabin, even if winter is hard, which is increasingly rarely the case.

He's responsible for some of these gadgets on the workbench. He buys whatever he thinks might interest his uncle and dumps it on him, whenever he can find an excuse to drive out here. He buys whatever won't put him on a watch-list. _My uncle likes to tinker. A bit eccentric in his old age, you know? Yeah, tell me about it. Dying breed, right? _He can't be sure he _isn't _on a watch-list, but it was safe to assume it's not the right kind, or they couldn't be sitting here and share coffee.

Today, he could have done without the excuse.

"I'm sorry, Jacks," the older one says. He leans back in his seat, watches him.

"It's mom's funeral," Jackson says and is surprised how meek his voice sounds. In that moment, he can't quite remember why it should even matter. He _knows _these things, he knows his uncle can't come and it's childish and stupid to think he might find a way.

His uncle studies him, calm in the face of the news of her death. "Let me paint you a picture, kid."

And he does, and just that he bothers at all is all the proof Jackson needs. How much this matters to him and how much he wants to go. But there is no way, really. Road surveillance will pick him up, ten miles down the road, at the utmost, superhydrophobic lenses on cameras, pristinely clean even in the wild and the dirt kicked up from the badly-kept road. Trans-material biometric mapping scanning his face no matter where he turned.

Tracking drones will take to the skies, herd them, like cattle, to exactly where the police find it convenient to pick them up. "Have you ever _seen_ a swarm of those?" his uncle asks.

He hasn't, but he's heard of it. Tracking drones will herd you, like cattle, to exactly where the police find it convenient to pick you up. He shakes his head.

"You don't want to," his uncle asserts. He doesn't tell the story, but Jackson knows of it already. Those were still the vigilante days and tracking drones were barely past the prototype stage, guarding and handful of sensitive structures around the city to see how they performed.

Jackson knows _of _the story, not how it had played out all those years ago. His uncle and his precious secrets and this seems just a minor thing, all things considered.

Jackson thinks of leaving it at that. He could finish the coffee and head home, prepare for the funeral on his own, head over to Deliah, fall asleep in her arms. It doesn't seem such a bad version of events.

All his life, Jackson has known himself to be part of two worlds. There has always been something that didn't quite match when he compared himself to anyone he has ever met in all his life. He has a different kind of history, however little he sometimes saw it reflected in his life.

He has this.

"Maybe there's a way to trick the system," Jackson hears himself say. "Just for an hour or two."

He looks up. "Criminals do it all the time, too."

"And then they get caught," his uncle says. "I've seen the statistics."

"You believe them?" Jackson asks surprised. Because he sure as hell believes _nothing _official.

Something tiny, almost like a smile, crosses his uncle's face. "Perhaps it would be better to say, I've seen the raw numbers and I can do the math."

Jackson thinks about this. His uncle is a man of many secrets, surely he would be able to keep a few from his nephew for his own sake, if nothing else.

Have you recently tried paying in cash in a store? It's frowned upon, even here in the sticks, though technically still a viable method, it's like announcing your intention of committing a crime over loudspeaker. His uncle grows his own food and hunts in the woods, what else he needs, he'll find someone to bring it to him.

He is off the grid. It doesn't mean a clever man can't hold on to some connections.

"On average, it takes twelve minutes to solve a crime, less than a day for an arrest," his uncle says. "At least once you disregard crimes you can't hide in front of a cam."

And it's shocking because Jackson is right, you can't believe the official numbers. They are _worse. _Makes you think, doesn't it? What reason does the government have to make it's crime statistics worse?

The answer is, of course, because the real numbers would spook the hell out of you, spark paranoia in even the most trusting of souls.

Jackson has one last argument. He isn't entirely sure he should use, has been debating back and forth on the way. But the deal has already been done, the _damage _has already been done, after a hasty, sneaky, awkward and starkly dangerous deal with a member of an endangered species: a Fixer.

"I got some stuff from the black market," Jackson says. He picks up his backpack and puts it on the table between them, letting it sit there, beside cups full of coffee so black it might just as easily be tar.

His uncle's first instinct, Jackson can see, is to be angry with him, for taking a stupid risk, _any _risk at all. Jackson talks fast, while he still can, while the discussion might still go where it needs to.

"This is Blume tech," he says. "State of the art. This is the stuff the cops have, the agencies. This is what theyuse, right now. Barely twenty-four hours out of date. This…" he points at the backpack like it's some sacred, long-sought after treasure out of a fairy tale. And perhaps it is. "If there's no opening in _this _then we are all doomed."

His uncle doesn't move, gaze hovering between Jackson and the backpack, lined face set in a stony calm Jackson has never quite managed not to dread, even though he is the only person _safe_ in its presence.

"How?" he asks, voice gone breathless. Awed. Disbelieving. "I burned DedSec trying to get my hands on this stuff."

Despite himself, despite everything Jackson knows or suspects, this takes him by surprise. DedSec has been gone for decades. Rarely, some lone hacker claims their name as they are dragged off to court, but whether there is ever anything more substantial to it, Jackson doesn't want to guess. For all he knows, for all his instincts tell himn, DedSec is gone. It went down in one long long night in a wave of house searches and arrests, leaving a different world behind.

It was only a week before his uncle finally declared his own retreat to the hinterlands. It was funny, though, DedSec and the vigilante both had a habit of cropping up in urban myth anyway, ever since, in a manifestation of an anarchistic streaks their brave new world has yet failed to breed out of them all.

"It's… complicated," Jackson finally says. "My girlfriend's mother was DedSec, but she grew up with her father, there were no records, right? And when the New Register Act hit, she lied her way out of it, like I did."

New Register was the curtain call. If you were a hacker, or a gang-banger, or a mobster, or anything other than an honest citizen, this was your last chance to use your opening. New Register created a database of everyone, all their information, stored in one place. There _were _protests, but the government sold it on how beneficial it was, cutting down on bureaucracy in so many small ways, the protests never gained enough momentum to roll over the Act.

His uncle had used it weave a new identity for him out of thin air and then taken it and ran, all the way out here. Not doubt in much the same way many others had done. And then, New Register closed all the old doors, keeping you locked on whatever side you'd chosen.

His uncle had also used it to sever himself from Jackson, reduce the name to nothing more than a coincidence. _No no, I'm not _the _Jackson Pearce. You wouldn't believe how often I get that. Here, it's all in my files, I'm not bullshitting you._ _Helps with small talk on parties, though. _

"Like we all did," his uncle echoes. "Everyone knew how the wind was blowing."

"Yeah," Jackson agrees. "So, she holds a grudge. And she knows people, and _they_ know people. Made them trust me. I kept you out of it all, I swear."

Jackson pauses, rests his gaze on the backpack. "Look, does it matter? Isn't it possible the government's become a little careless? It's been twenty years of almost smooth sailing. They've destroyed DedSec, driven you out, Blume's practically running the country, why shouldn't they become complacent on their laurels?"

When his uncle moves, finally, breaking a spell Jackson hasn't realised is there, it's to put a long-boned hand on the backpack, pull it towards himself. He opens the magzip and it hisses quietly as it releases.

It's a fascinating thing, his uncle's face as he examines the contents and Jackson has never been entirely sure how to read him. There is a crease worn down between his eyebrows, deep gashes on the sides of his mouth, corners slanted downward. Bags under his eyes from age rather than lack of sleep. It occurs to Jackson that he's an old man and this is the promise of his youth and perhaps it's unfair to give it to him, even for an hour, even if he can only use it to mourn his sister.

His uncle looks up, catches and holds Jackson's gaze. There is a spark there, something _new, _Jackson thinks at first, but corrects himself immediately. It's not new, the opposite in fact. This is old, some residue of fires.

It's the worst kept secret, if Jackson has ever seen it, that his uncle hates the countryside. He's bored out of his wits. There's just so much you can do with low-end gadgets on a workbench and without any network access worth the term.

"This isn't for a funeral," his uncle observes. Reaches in and pulls out the phone and it opens in his hands like a fan, thin, flexible screen between blackly metallic guardsticks. It boots at his touch, springs to life and he snaps it closed again.

Jackson has never seen anything nearly as sophisticated as this phone in his uncle's hands, but he seems to have no trouble grasping the concept.

"It is," Jackson says. "It's only for that. That's the deal, uncle. You don't go… do… the things you did. Because I don't want to go to your funeral, too. Not when mom isn't even in the ground yet. I want you to be at my wedding, all right? I want you to hold your grandchildren."

A smile steals itself onto his uncle's face, a little rueful, but his eyes have yet to lose their curious glitter.

"Easy there," he says mildly. "Don't go wasting all your ammo on the first shot."

But Jackson won't give in, "You promise me. With this stuff? You can come and go, if you don't attract attention. It'll work for years. There's no reason why it shouldn't."

His uncle laughs, a deep-throated, self-deprecating sound, but not without genuine humour, or warmth.

"Come on, I'm kidding, Jacks," he says. "I'm not going to be running and gunning through Chicago. Those days are gone."

He glances down at the phone. "I don't even know if I can find a way to trick the system, but I'll try."

He looks up. "I'll try and I'll come to the funeral."

Jackson takes a breath, doesn't realise how much he has needed to until he does, weight off his chest from one moment to the next, setting him free.

"Thanks," he whispers. "It… it means a lot."

For a moment, the sparkling humour is gone and his uncle nods gravely.

It's an accident, though, of chance and circumstance that makes his mother's funeral and his acquisition of the hardware fall into the same moment. He's planned to get and give these things to his uncle for many years, but the chance has never come before. But it's a good thing, it'd be hard to rein in his uncle, if he's set his mind on something. And his mother is one of the few people to hold any weight in this equation, even now that she's dead. Or perhaps because of it.

It's the best Jackson can do. He's fairly sure it's the best his uncle can do, too.

* * *

It's still early in the evening when Jackson drives home, the low humming of the electric motor his only companion. His Radio has suggested a few appropriate songs for the occasion, but he's declined. He'll need to face the thoughts in his own head, make up his own mind while he can hear himself think.

He passes a swarm of sleek tracking drones, hovering over the hills for a moment, then congealing behind him like a black cloud visible in his rear-view mirror.

His heart skips, than tries to beat itself out of his chest, choking his throat. He sits there, petrified, for a much longer than he realises. He doesn't know what to do, like he's a little boy again and his world spins completely out of his control.

* * *

There is nothing on the news. Nothing at all. Jackson doesn't believe them, but through lies they tell, they still sometimes reveal some shards of truth.

What is he to make of this? Surely, _someone _would wish to gloat? It's not the triumph it could've been, not the victory it would have been if Chicago's infamous vigilante had been brought down twenty years earlier. It's more difficult to conjure a good headline out of a lonely old man in a cabin. No doubt it could be done, though.

Yet. _Nothing. _

* * *

The rain is heavy, beating down like the end of the world on the graveyard, like it's trying to wash them all away, sweep clean the decades of dirt and grime from all the gravestones. Simultaneously revealing the names on all the graves and hiding them behind a thick curtain of grey.

Jackson's memory of Lena has grown hazy over the years. It's too long and he was too young. He's never completely figured out how her loss was supposed to make him feel. He still doesn't know and he's tired of therapists giving him the same useless advise over and over again. His life is under his control, as much as can be said for anyone, and he's decreed that it be enough.

He clings to Deliah throughout, much more than he wants to. He's uncomfortable, more than she is, but she says nothing, is just _there _because she knows what it means, what all of this means to him.

His uncle isn't there. It shouldn't be surprising, but Jackson has no answers to what has happened. His best guess is that the government tech was being tracked, automatically and was doubtlessly flagged as stolen. It hasn't been the _deal, _but Jackson couldn't exactly go and ask for a refund.

Deliah settles her head on his shoulder and water runs down into the back of his coat.

* * *

It takes far too long until he works up the courage to go back to the cabin, chastising himself all the way. Should have been earlier, should have turned around then and there and raced after the swarm. Make some kind of bullshit statement, burn the life he had built to the ground in one big conflagration. A great last stand.

He doesn't. He can't. His mother wouldn't want him to. His uncle wouldn't. Deliah might cheer, but she wouldn't want him to, either.

He goes back, eventually. Under a pretext, a good story, in case someone asks awkward questions.

Instead, the cabin is deserted. No, not just empty, but _tidy. _Nothing on the workbench, most of the clothes gone from the wardrobe. Someone cleaned this out, took everything useful. Could be a neighbour, though. Or it could be…

Dust dances in sunlight rays and the silence sure as hell lacks the compassion to finish the thought for him.

* * *

It's weeks later. A month. Two. Half a year.

He asks Deliah to marry him. It's old-fashioned, but he wants her, formally, forever.

Life goes on.

He still doesn't have any answers.

* * *

The morning is murky, ugly in the aftermath of the first blackout in sixteen years. It's thrown the city into more chaos than Jackson has ever seen since he was a teenager. He wanders out on the balcony and lights a cigarette. His phone warns him about the health risk and sends an automatic notification to his insurance company.

_Go right ahead, _he thinks glumly. _Keep that up and we'll see how you deal with a nine-story drop. _

The smoke burns down his throat, acrid and bitter and, yeah, got to admit that, pretty damn awful. Stupid habit, like he can't think of another way to show some defiance. What is he? Fifteen?

His phone announces a call, cheerfully subservient as if their previous discord has never happened.

He lets it wail for a full minute. It asks if it should take a message.

"Yeah!" he snaps. Why has he ever though that voice interface was a good idea? It's like he's got himself a nagging spouse, because Deliah didn't want to play the part.

The phone stops, though, taking his message and he has a moment of peace. He gets through the cigarette with his pride intact, though feeling slightly queasy, smoking on an empty stomach. Such private acts of defiance, they never are quite as satisfying as you imagine them beforehand.

He heads back inside and sets himself to make breakfast. He puts the phone down on the counter as he busies himself and let's it finally spew out the message.

It's distorted, odd enough for a high-tech call and there are odd lags between the words, making it hard to decipher at first and it confuses him for an endless minute. Too long, surely, for a voice this deep and this distinctive.

_"I'm sorry I couldn't make it to Nicky's funeral. I made a promise and I broke it. Wasn't my choice, but there it is. I stand by what I said, however: No more running and gunning. But there are other things for me to do. You shouldn't worry. _

_I'm not going to be at your wedding, either, but congratulations to the both of you. Tell Deliah she's made a good match, but I could be biased. Don't forget that you owe me some grandchildren." _

Jackson turns on his heels, draws a thin line of coffee after him from the cup he holds askew.

Later, he will be vaguely grateful he's painstakingly made sure most of the cameras in his house recorded the back of flowerpots, piles of books, the edge of a box or the heel of Deliah's favourite boots and _not _his stupid expression for whoever's watching.

_"Oh, I made sure this message deletes itself after you've listened to it, I hope you've been paying attention."_

* * *

_End of _Quaint Old World_

* * *

**Additional References: **The title is an obvious pun on 'Brave New World'. I'll try to be more clever next time.

**Author's Note: **I wanted to be ambigious about Jackson's lover. You know, gender-neutral name and never a pronoun, but it required a lot of awkward phrasing or removing many direct mentions. It disrupted the flow of the story.

I _think _I messed up references to how much time has passed a little bit. I went over it to fix everything but I can't guarantee it. On the other hand, there are mentions to how long ago the end of the game was, as well as how long ago Aiden's retirement was. Those aren't the same numbers.

Lastly, I'm not completely satisfied with the ending. I don't _know _what he's gonna do now. I'd love a glorious return to old form, but I don't think that's on the table. I don't really deal with happy endings, but let's give him a good last run, shall we? There _may _be a second part to this eventually.

_**Happy reading!**_


	3. Black Magic

_Seriously_ incomplete list of Aiden's crimes there, but he was on a schedule.

**_Black Magic**

_Audio Log: Aiden Pearce._

_It's an elaborate con, one of the most complex ones I've ever played. It's my own safety net and it can just as easily break my own neck._

#

Charlotte Gardner was alone in her office, working late as she usually did. It was silent, save for the quiet hum of the ventilation and it was dark, save for the light on her desk and the screen of her computer. Outside her office, a security guard was on his patrol. He was used to her schedule and didn't interrupt her.

On some days, her secretary stuck around well into the after hours, but he still usually left her before midnight. It was now well _past _midnight and she considered letting it go for the night and heading home, heading into a weekend. Or at least what was left of it at this point.

Being split two ways between her duties to Blume and her newly acquired responsibilities to Chicago had done nothing to increase her free-time. If she kept going like this, she would be eaten alive and it would help no one.

No, instead, she would run for mayor and leave her job at Blume behind. It would assuage those voices who worried about too much power in one hand, for one. For another, she could do a better job if she could give it her all.

The public didn't seem to quite realise the importance of loyaty here, with all their worries about her ties to Blume. Just because she would no longer be working for them, didn't mean she would forget her duty to the company. Neither did she like the thought of leaving her successor with more unsolved problems than necessary, thus her work hours.

Blume was having a difficult time, though the rest of the city didn't need to know about it. ctOS was not a secure system. She was no engineer, but she understood enough to listen to what actual engineers were telling her when she asked. Raymond Kenney _was _ctOS. He had backdoors in his backdoors, he had trojans and viruses aplenty should he need any kind of access at all. ctOS would probably dance polka if he send the right signal. Raymond Kenney was everywhere and ctOS had been completely blinded to him.

There was no way to get rid of him now, not when so much of the source code bore his handwriting, when so much of the software was his creation. You'd have to start from scratch, completely from scratch, if you wanted to purge him. Kenney was a genius, no one with any sense would deny that. Leaning on the madness side, apparently, but it made him no less inscrutable to those who were supposed to sniff out wayward pieces of code, all the bits and hooks he had planted over the years.

Replacing ctOS was out of the question, of course. They could do it — _maybe — _if they had a new OS to roll out, but any outage of the network would cost them, not just money, but also trust. It would paralyse the entire city and after recent events, it wouldn't go over well. People needed peace and stability now, more than anything.

Then there was the entire tiresome problem of Aiden Pearce to be dealt with. If Kenney, for all intents and purposes, _was _the system, then Pearce was at least _in _the system, too. Except, while there was nothing else positive that could be said about Kenney, _Kenney_ was familiar. He had trained some of their people and worked closely with others here at Blume. His tricks were at least _known, _even if they could not, at this point, be eliminated. Pearce was an unknown on all counts and not shy to diverge from Kenney's known inroads. There was just no telling just how deep he'd buried himself in their system by now.

Pearce was invisible to ctOS. He didn't show up on scans, the systems didn't identify him, they had never been able to track him. He was a ghost, a spectre, haunting them at every turn, who never showed his face unless _he_ wanted to.

Ironically, his own fame wreaked havoc on his own sophisticated camouflage.

People on the streets recognised him and plastered pictures all over their social media accounts, they wrote about it, chatted to their friends, mentioned it in emails and phone calls. You could get to him that way, certainly. In the beginning, everyone had been optimistic, they could map his movements just using the trace he left on other people's digital footprints. Yes, Chicagoans professed their admiration and respect for him, but they didn't seem to quite realise he was a wanted criminal, too.

Eventually, patterns would have to emerge from this raw and random data, she knew as much and from that pattern, Pearce would find himself caught in a web woven entirely by his most fervent cheerleaders. That, at least, had been the idea she pitched to the police mere days after she came into office as interim mayor.

Except, it never came through. A few weeks earlier, popular photo apps started showing severe geolocation malfunctions. In fact, all locations, regardless of where the picture was obviously taken, would be pinpointed, without fail to the same location in the Russian tundra. And a little while later, all pictures presumably depicting the vigilante were badly blurred out.

Gardner sighed as she skimmed through the mail the engineers had sent her. Basically, what happened was that the phone would scramble the images themselves, once they picked up a certain signal. What signal? No idea. How can you tell the shape of a key by looking at the lock?

Can't you?

It's not so easy.

So there was that. On bad days, she hoped Chicagoans would eventually just tire of him, tire of the constant chaos that followed him, inevitably, through the city. One day, one too many innocent bystanders would have been hurt in whatever crusade he thought he was on. They needed just one person, in the end, only one to point a finger and say _I know where he sleeps. _

Then there was DedSec. There was a rumour going around that some of their own employees were secretly funnelling information their way. Nothing had ever be confirmed or proven, no names had come up that couldn't be dropped after just an hour of investigation. But the ease with which DedSec came and went implied there was more to it than just grapevine.

DedSec are a strange little unity, she thought. Anarchistic. _Archaic, _come to think of it. A bunch of kids, hung up on hippie ideals they were probably too young to even remember, it always seemed to her, always on the edge of going that one step too far toward radicalisation. They'd tear it all down, the work of so many, the _betterment _of so much, on nothing more than idle, juvenile fantasy.

She didn't think DedSec understood their own role in all of this, or knew where they wanted to go. They had no goal for the future she could discern in any of their piggybacked message. They were just _against Blume. _Not much of an agenda. It would be a mistake to dismiss them because of it, of course, they could and did do substantial damage. If there was some way to take them out of the game, Gardner already had the press release ready. She had enjoyed writing that one.

And then, there was one last thorn she needed to survey tonight. A new hacker had been making the rounds for a few weeks. Hellbent, more than any of the others, just to do as much damage as he could and if damage couldn't be had, he'd settle for mayhem. Blume was a favourite target, but all public authority seemed fair game, the police especially. Just recently, Blume had been called in to rectify what turned out to be a massive system breach within Chicago PD's internal servers wherein all passwords had been set to 'yourmother'. Occasionally, well-to-do citizens of Chicago would find they had donated substantial amounts of money to charity, though apparently without having been asked first.

He was obviously hung up on some backwards idea of Robin Hood, this particular hacker, but that didn't make him anything less of a threat. He liked to sign his work, too, called himself BlackMage. Eventually, this piece of egotism would lead to his capture, making it easier to track him.

DedSec had disavowed him, the same way they habitually did with Pearce. Gardner wasn't sure why DedSec would bother with either. It seemed like a tactical mistake. Why not present a united front for your enemy and keep your internal disagreements, well, _internal? _

It was what she always advised on such things, but apparently DedSec neither had, nor perhaps wanted, a PR professional. Far be it from her to begrudge her enemies such a mistake.

A small red flag lit up at the bottom of her screen, followed by a popup demanding her immediate attention and it made the blood in her veins run cold. _This _was what they had been waiting for for a long time, never sure _if _it would ever come. The message would be sent to any executive still in the building when it happened. And since it wasn't exactly her area of expertise, there were no others.

She sat, hands still hovering above the keyboard. She could set off a silent alarm. She _should _do it, probably, mobilise their security personnel instantly instead of leaving them blind and in the dark about the threat. If this was it, at all, and therein lay the problem. Circumstantial, flimsy clues, if that. Nothing more to go on, the last trap designed when no one at Blume had any idea left what else to do.

Black glass walls set her office apart from her outer office, all of it sheathed in low late-night illumination and a great expanse of darkness.

The sliding door opened, quietly moving on its rails. Never before had it occurred to her just how little protection a wall of glass offered. But these were her innermost thoughts and she was a professional, well-versed in handling difficult and delicate situations. If you lost your composure, you lost everything.

She forced the lump in her throat down and plastered earnest calm and mild surprise on her face, watched as the vigilante stepped from the shadows and into the small circle of light cast from her desk. Easy to recognise him, even if he hadn't come the way he had. What little untampered footage of him they had, they had analysed to death, but the reality of him, the sheer, solid _three-dimensionalit_y of him was something she hadn't expected. Not quite as hulking as she expected, tall, but not huge, not as broad. If she didn't know who he was, she'd let him buy her a drink, she supposed.

But she knew who he was, perhaps better than many others. That cap he always wore, it shadowed his face even now, the weathered leather coat, fraying edges and battered in one too many firefights. Chicago's bogeyman. The vigilante. Perhaps 'know' was not the word for it, after all.

The heavy fall of the coat hid any weapons he might be wearing underneath it, hands tucked away in the pockets and he looked almost too casual, like this was _nothing, _like walking into a top floor office of Blume was something he'd do on a slow Sunday evening to stave off boredom.

"How many families will I have to give news of their loved ones deaths?" she asked.

"None, coming in." he said quietly. His voice was very deep. They had no recording of it. "Leaving, will be up to you."

She looked down at her screen and the notice still visible there. She said, "I knew you'd be coming. We are keeping statistics of equipment malfunction. In the last hour they increased by 97.6%."

She looked up. "You're like a demon out of some medieval tale: portents precede your arrival."

"Yeah," he said, unimpressed. "And you did nothing to stop me."

If he worried about potential traps, he gave no sign of it. And it _had_ been meant to be a trap, but it wasn't set, they didn't know he'd ever come or that the statistics were anything more than shots in the dark.

"Why are you here?" she asked. "What do you want?"

He didn't answer immediately, elected instead to pace a few steps, the length of her office, stopping by a corner and turning to face her again.

"I heard you were running for mayor," he said and it was an obvious opening move. DedSec had certainly already picked up on it and were campaigning against her with everything they had. So far, people seemed more annoyed by DedSec's hi-jacking of their newscasts than swayed by what they were saying. Gardner hadn't quite expected Pearce on the same bandwagon.

"Why wouldn't I?" she asked with a levity she certainly didn't feel. "I have been doing the work and I do it well. Don't think I don't know what you did. You turned Chicago into a battlefield and these scars are a long way from being healed. What Chicago needs now is…"

"Anything but another speech," he interrupted and she fell silent as if he'd put her on mute. He paced back to the centre of the room, stepped forward so he was facing her across the desk.

"I did some digging," he said. "And you know it's strange, your biography is exemplary. Perfect little family, idyllic childhood, good grades all the way back. You were class representative three successive years and you won a school beauty pageant once. Commendation letters from teachers and professors. Blume hired you right out of college. You live in a surprisingly modest apartment in the Loop."

It was strange to listen to him recite all these things without much inflection or indeed, any indication what he thought about any of it. Of course, most of her personal information was public, in her position, trying to keep secrets rarely paid off.

"You've been with your partner, Simon Ahern, for eight years now," Pearce continued in the same low, neutral tone. "But you're going to announce your engagement pretty soon, obviously, because…"

"How do you know that? We told no one!"

"Engagement party invitation concepts on Simon's laptop," he said and the first show of emotion at all seemed to be faint amusement. "Drop the golden flower design, if you want my opinion, it's a bit too much."

She narrowed her eyes. "If this is some kind of veiled threat…"

"No no, I'm coming to that, if you'd let me finish?"

She wasn't stupid enough not to know that he was playing some more complicated game here, something other than citing her own biography to her and casually mentioning that, no, he wasn't just in Blume's system, but everywhere else he goddamn pleased.

"So here's the strange part. Of over two million people in Chicago, you are apparently the only one without _any _dirty laundry."

"That's it?" she asked, she almost had to laugh. "That's _all? _You… accuse me of being… not dirty? What is that? Is it beyond your imagination that someone is actually exactly what they seem? You've been spending too much time with Viceroys and Club members. It's skewed your perception."

"There is no one without anything to hide."

"You'd know all about that, wouldn't you?" she said with more of a sneer than she wanted. "Your record is far from clean."

He shrugged. "Homicide, aggravated assault, grand theft auto, computer tampering and fraud, identity theft, and I text while I drive."

She shook her head, barely exaggerated sadness there. "You aren't even ashamed. Your fans in the street, they don't see you for what you are. Not yet. They will eventually, you realise that, don't you?"

"If you could make any of that stick, you'd have done it a long time ago."

He was right, too. She had a very ugly smear campaign ready to go at a moment's notice. She had the numbers, even some of the footage, to show everyone just how little of the vigilante was actually viable hero material. He _helped _people, sometimes, when they didn't happen to be in his way, when he didn't need to use and discard them for some other end. Sometimes that end seemed to be nothing more than his personal gain, like he was charging some kind of vigilante tax from the owners of online banking accounts throughout the city. She could _prove _those things. It wasn't PR trickery at all. If he ever had to stand trial, he'd never see the light of day again.

To be unable to use all this against him was aggravating, but he was right. Any attempt by any official source, Blume or the city or even some coveted attempts, to bring him into disrepute, would just romanticise him further in the eyes of the public. She needed to bide her time, they all did.

She took a deep breath and decided to drop the topic. "I ask again," she said sharply. "You come here, do all this, just to tell me my record is clean?"

"I'm telling you your record sounds like a fairy story," he said, matching her tone. "What will I find if I dig a little deeper? What do you think? Do you want me to?"

"Dig all you want," she said with clenched-teeth defiance. "There is nothing there, you won't find anything."

"Really?" he asked lightly. He pulled his hand from his pocket, black-gloved hand and the phone it held, looked down at it contemplatively. He was playacting, she could tell. He probably didn't even _need _the phone for any of what he was saying.

Despite everything, Gardner caught herself wondering what their programmers could do with that phone if they ever got their hands on it. They could probably tear Aiden Pearce out of ctOS, like bad weed, roots and all.

"Here's a very sad story," he said, as if he'd just spotted it. As he spoke, he slowly wandered around her desk and came entirely too close for comfort when he leaned against the table by her side. "Cyber-bullying one of your fellow students. Your friends here at Blume did a good job at hiding it, but that's the drawback of a system designed to preserve information, it just never goes away completely."

He looked down and directly at her.

"Poor woman killed herself," he observed with a kind of sinister cheerfulness.

Gardner said nothing. It wasn't too late to set off the silent alarm, was it? He was still stuck in this office with her, on top of a skyscraper filled with security guards. Taking him down would require sacrifices, of course. She had already written the statements.

She didn't want to be the subject of those statements, though. She didn't want to be his first victim tonight, or his hostage and meat shield on the way out. His coat had folded away, revealing, yes, he was armed. Strange, because _of course _he would be, but seeing the gun just made it so much worse.

"What do you want?" she asked once more. She fidgeted a little in her seat, couldn't stop herself, in some attempt to gain distance between them without _seeming _to do so. Looking at him seemed demeaning, not looking at him even more so.

He put his head a little to the side, just enough for the light from her screen to crawl up his cheek and catch in startling green eyes. "You should keep pursuing your career at Blume. Politics can be such a minefield. All I have to do is leak some hints to DedSec and they'll do the rest."

"You should have spared yourself the trouble," Gardner said slowly. She wasn't sure she wanted it this way. She should lie, tell him whatever he thought he wanted to hear and wait until he was out the door, then set off the alarm and hide while it all went down.

For a moment, he did nothing, just sat there, contemplating her. Then he moved, so fast it nearly pulled a shriek from her throat. He dropped his phone into his pocket, got away from the desk, gripped the back of her chair and swirled her around, brief disorienting vertigo making her blink. He dropped both hands to the armrests, leaning in.

"I give you _one_ chance," he said and there it was, the threat he had been keeping hidden until now. Nothing _veiled _about it, nothing hidden, just the unspoken, razor implication of all the ways he could tear her life down. She sunk back in her chair as far as she could possibly go.

"You _really_ should take…"

All screens in her office flared to life, the large one on the wall, her desktop computer and even her laptop showed nothing but glaring white. Through the black glass, she could see the screen of her secretary's computer doing the same. You didn't need to be a genius to know every _other _screen in the building was doing it.

Pearce was staring at her screen, the same as she did, surprise and anger making an odd combination of his expression. He hadn't moved away, but his focus was clearly no longer on her.

A black line pushed itself across the screen, splitting it in two, then it deflected to the sound of a heavily distorted voice.

_"Here's one from me to you, dear lovely drones of Blume!" _

There was a dramatic pause. Distracted as she was, Gardner still caught Pearce mutter, "Not her again," under his breath, so quietly it couldn't be meant for her.

_"This is SPARTAAAA!" _Then the voice chuckled. _"Get clean, my precious! Yours truly, BlackMage!" _

Everything went dark, screens and light, but without the hard, familiar slap of a blackout as it kicked in. And the sprinklers went off, like a floodgate opening, drenching them completely in just one moment.

Pearce finally let go off her chair and stepped back. She could barely see him, now that the only light came from the cityscape outside, only the outline of him against it. She saw him pull out his phone again, saw it light his face and the sprinklers turned off again.

"Nevermind the interruption," Pearce said, but she thought she heard some strain in his controlled voice this time. "Take the chance I give you, I'm not generous."

As far as he was concerned, the conversation was done and he headed for the door, dismissed her entirely. She didn't know if the alarm even still worked, had no idea what _else _BlackMage had done to their system. Three hackers, then. Not just Kenney and Pearce with this level of access, this new guy had it, too.

It made her wonder _who else _was there, with their fingers firmly on the pulse. Any one of them could probably make it all fall to pieces at a hand-wave. Pearce wasn't doing it because he was riding too hard on ctOS' functionality. He might claim otherwise, but without it, he'd be _nothing. _Kenney, she had no inkling at all. He was in hiding, perhaps too embittered to realise what he could do.

No one knew what BlackMage even wanted, with his long string of bad and expensive pranks.

Wait. _Her. _Pearce had said _her. _He knew who this was and he didn't seem to be particularly thrilled.

"You know about BlackMage," Gardner accused and actually managed to stop him on his tracks. It wasn't enough to get him to turn back around.

"There's know and _know," _he pointed out roughly. "If I really _knew, _I'd deliver her with her fingers broken and a bullet through the head."

It took her a long moment to figure out where the rancour in his tone was coming from. When she did, she had to stifle a laugh. Was it possible he had been on the receiving end of BlackMage's jokes, too?

"But you know more than we do," she insisted. Her own intensity drove her out of her chair and around the desk, after him. The soaked carpet gave in under her feet. "We could work together on this. You could give us what you have and…"

"I don't work for you," he said with finality and stepped out through the door where he had come from. In the darkness, outside on the hallway, she heard the dull sound of a brief scuffle. A security guard, no doubt roused by what had just happened, was unlucky enough to get in his way.

After a few minutes, probably with Pearce safely off the floor, the sprinklers were turned back on.

#

_How do you make a con work? Always be prepared to go the extra mile._


	4. Nothing Left to Prove

[this is undated]

**_Nothing Left to Prove**

* * *

It was always going to end like this. Something like this. It was going to be a bullet to the head, a blade to the throat, a car wreck deformed beyond recognition severing the torso or brain splattered on the ground through the cracks in the motorcycle helmet.

It was going to be red-blue-white flickering lights from police and fire department and emergency vehicles, helicopter search lights painting large swathes of brightness across the road while the city is sheathed in darkness and chaos.

It was going to be the end of the run, the last searing flashes of flames as they died to the crackling laughter of electricity bouncing between broken connections, leaving countless surveillance cameras to hang their heads as if in mourning, their all-seeing eyes momentarily blinded to the scene just below them. Fitting, in a way, for there would be no recording of this, no digital footprint to follow, no pixels to analyse in the years to come. No proof, either, for the hunters that they had brought down their quarry in the end. Just a body, mangled, broken in more ways than is imaginable, or comfortable to think about. Charred and so utterly, so hopelessly destroyed, nothing more than flesh, dead meat for the modern day scavengers.

It was always going to end. Like this. Or in some other way, equally brutal, equally inevitable. You live by the sword, you die by it, they say. And, because times change even for the best and the worst of us, if you live by the gun you will find the same fate. Still, you might ask, what if you lived by your wits? By your experience, by years upon harsh, merciless years of battle upon brutal battle. What if your finger on the trigger was just an afterthought and the first strike — and the second — came from an entirely different direction?

What of those? Still broken, in the end? Bleeding out into the dirtied, grey and black of the unyielding concrete of the street they once owned?

But you remember, don't you? There are no camera eyes. They are blind and being blind, the future will remember this moment through witnesses alone, through _people,_ fallible and easily confounded, easily scared and played for fools. If they weren't, perhaps none of this would have happened, no one would be here — there — on that city street at night in the blackout. And what they see, these eye-witnesses at the end of it all? What do they know of the lifeless carcass of the legend at their feet?

Not as much as they think, perhaps. And less, always _less, _than they should. It is the nature of humans, their only true tragedy.

The scene has only one way it can go, though, regardless of what preceded, the true nature of the chase and the fight before the fall, before the blackout and all the blood and scattered limbs and soft, torn tissue everywhere. The cops will come, still armed, still wary at the end of it, guns raised as if there was still a threat, still a last trick for the Fox to pull even in death. And when nothing comes and the stillness lasts long enough to finally believe it might be the real thing, the medics will come instead and put the mangled body in a bag and carry it away, put it in the freezer like something out of a supermarket, carelessly bought and discarded.

Pathologists will get to work, eventually, sample upon sample taken from what used to be a man — or something else, something more or _worse_ for you, depending on what role you had in this game. You can see them, can't you? In your mind's eye? In their labs, staring into their screens as they watch the results come in. They'd have to reconstruct the face, just to get Profiler to comply and spew out what is left, after so many years, of reliable records. DNA and fingerprints and retina scans, carefully saved and preserved for this very moment, down the line, in the hope it would ever come.

(Even if hope is really a sad thing.)

You shouldn't be surprised at how well the matching goes. No, really, you shouldn't. This entire thing would have been a pointless waste if the body couldn't have been identified, despite the damage it has suffered. We live in the future of the world, at least, we like to think so. Like all before us, we think we are at the pinnacle. Surely, a _little_ fire after a _little_ car crash and a _few_ bullets cannot make it impossible for science and our skills to put a name on the tag and engrave it on a tombstone (though, there won't be a tombstone, those in power know well enough what would happen if there were.)

The thing is, really, all those 0s and 1s, they are fickle things. They look like something reliable, truths set in stone, unshakable. But really, haven't you been paying attention? Everything I said before, until now, everything you know about this man shot and burned and stabbed and shredded out in the street. If there is nothing else in the world (and there is) that does his bidding, it's exactly those 0s and 1s. Dancing to his tune, really. It's a nice sight, I can only recommend it.

This is not how it _ends_, you didn't think that, did you? You shouldn't believe everything they tell you. _They_ shouldn't believe everything they think they know.

Look at what they have, why don't you. They have a body, chased down, turned into burned, minced meat on a dark city street. Who has time, in moments like this, to pay attention? The phone wasn't broken until the very end, before the blackout hit and when it happened, ctOS wasn't there. Eyewitnesses, I said it before, and they are as they are, they think they know, but they can barely tell fact from fiction in their normal lives, much less so under stress.

No, you probably can't trust them. Even if they think they are telling the truth and others, well, they may have reasons to lie, too. You can never really know for sure. It seems very inviting to trust the data, if that's the alternative. But really, do you want to trust the data when it resides on computers networked to ctOS? You do know who I am, do you?

That's how I make my living. Ah yes, still do. That body? Not really me, no. You should've seen it coming. I hope you did.

It holds true, though. This is how it'll end in the long run. At one point or another, the hunt will end and blood will spill and the concrete won't care what it soaks up. And they'll bag me up in plastics and bury me in an unmarked grave where no one will ever find me.

Everything, _always_, ends like that.

* * *

_Audio Log #[error: incorrect integer value]: Aiden Pearce [erased, unrecoverable]_

* * *

_End of _Nothing Left to Prove_

* * *

**Author's Note:** I'm really beginning to like this style of writing. Sorry it's so short, though. Short and sweet, hopefully. It's sort of the follow-up I wanted to write for Quaint Old World, but then again, it isn't at all. I don't know where it came from. I wanted to kill the guy. I wanted to make him survive. Having to pay no attention to continuity gives you amazing freedom.

* * *

**Revised on 31/May/2015 and 18/January/2016**


	5. A Fatal Thing

[summary: are we bantering?]

[this takes place in 2010]

**_A Fatal Thing**

**"Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess." ― Oscar Wilde**

* * *

Damien transferred the cigarette to the other corner of his mouth, settled his hand on Aiden's arm and shifted him around for a better angle under the heat of the lamp. He held fast before he applied the tweezers, digging through shredded flesh for yet another tiny shard of glass.

Aiden hissed through clenched teeth, but barely flinched. His forearms and palms were lacerated, blood caked everywhere and everytime Damien wiped it away to see what the hell he was even doing, fresh blood welled up. Nothing deep enough to warrant stitches, though, which was good news. Damien would have had to pack his partner into the car and find some doctor he could bribe or blackmail. More effort by far than he was in the mood for tonight.

A few splinters had managed to cut up Aiden's face, too, but the damage there was minor. Band-aids dotted his face over the worst cuts, the others left to scab.

"One day, you are gonna get yourself killed, kid," Damien said, wiped the fresh blood away and went to the next fissure. "You're gonna burn to cinders."

"Are _you _advising caution?" Aiden asked, adrenaline-fuelled levity riding hard on another pained hiss. "You wanted the drive. It's not my fault they put it in the safe. In fact, if your information hadn't been a week out of da… _fuck!_…out of date…"

"I told you it was old news," Damien pointed out, the pincers digging cruelly deep. "I told you it could be somewhere hard to access. I told you to be careful."

"I was careful."

"You got thrown through a second story window," Damien bit down on the cigarette so he could give a quick grin. "I'd hate to see careless."

"You applaud careless, every time it's happened. Besides, the window wasn't a fuck up, it was the escape plan…"

Damien wiped more blood away, leaned back momentarily to take a last drag from his cigarette and studied his protégé. Aiden looked pale in the white glare of the lamp, tired and just a little high after the chase. A small drop of blood had dried on his cheek in a perfect tear shape. Aiden used the pause to rub it away and managed to reopen some minor cuts in the process and smearing the blood along his jaw.

"I knew you were crazy when I found you," Damien remarked. He was probably doing a bad job at discouraging this type of behaviour, true enough and the USB drive Aiden had retrieved was worth quite a bit.

"You've got it backward, _I_ found _you_," Aiden said. "Shit, get that glass out of me."

"Yeah, well, you're still crazy."

Damien studded out the cigarette and went back to painstakingly remove every sharp-edged, blood-drenched piece of broken glass. It was messy, blood kept getting in the way, ran down everywhere. Kid could count himself lucky nothing important had been damaged. He needed his hands for the keyboard and he sure as hell needed them to fight, neither of which would be a lot of fun with a bunch of severed sinews.

"And stop rubbing at the face," Damien added. "You'll just make it worse and where _would _you be without that pretty face?"

"Didn't know you cared."

"Yeah, I'm the one who has to look at it all the time, especially when you type, you should see yourself," Damien nodded, finally finished with the first arm. It had taken the worst of it, apparently. He slapped a liberal amount of disinfectant on it before he bandaged the arm tightly. "Always wondered, actually, were you popular in prison?"

Currently distracted by the slow relief of pain from one arm, Aiden didn't shoot back immediately, only arched a inquisitive eyebrow at him and retracted the arm to cradle it against his chest.

"More than you," Aiden said finally. Probably true, all things considered. Damien knew Aiden's story only vaguely, for some reason Aiden hadn't felt like sharing. Must have been some really embarrassing mess for Aiden, with all his ruthless street smarts to land himself in jail. Men like that, they tended to find some bolt-hole in time, some sacrificial lamb to take the fall in their stead. Damien's own story wasn't anything to brag about either, so he felt disinclined to pry. However, someone, somewhere, really should be congratulated for bringing them together at all. Match made in heaven or some other biblical place, at least. Probably quite a bit warmer, though.

As far as Damien could tell, Aiden's prison time had been mostly uneventful. He'd collected a group of hangers-on, guys with a nose for who the bigger shark was in any given cell tract. No one dumb enough to pull anything in the showers, certainly. Or if someone _had,_ nobody had yet found the pieces.

Damien, meanwhile, had been making nice and helping out with the prison library and it's geriatric computer. Which is where he'd met Aiden, a man with all the appearances of a knuckle-dragging thug and the brains of a goddamned fucking prodigy. In retrospect it was a little hard to say who had latched onto whom first.

"I need a drink," Aiden said.

"When I'm done," Damien said. He'd moved his chair around and pinned the other arm under the light. "Consider it an educational measure from your elder."

"I can just get up and take it."

"Yeah, and then I'll let you play nurse on yourself."

"What, and deprive yourself of the pleasure?"

"You wish. Dismantling a difficult security system and earning a shitload of money without having to put on pants _that_'s what gives me pleasure; I love a good drink and _sometimes _it's fun watching you fumble with a bit of tricky code. This," he poked the tweezers into a bit of undamaged skin to a rather startled snarl from his partner, "really isn't up there."

"And you love telling me off," Aiden huffed. "Educational measure my ass."

"_Someone_ has to."

"_Someone _needs to keep going. How much longer is this gonna take?"

"Good work needs patience, my boy," he said with a ridiculously stern look.

"I'm in pain and I want a drink, patience really doesn't have anything to do with it."

During the procedure, Aiden had gone from keeping stoically silent to snarling and hissing like an angry animal. It wasn't exactly a reassuring change. Bit of a temper, that one, and quick to violence, especially after someone got the jump on him and the pain couldn't be helping.

Damien had caught a hook to the chin, once, though it had been more of an accident in the middle of a bigger scuffle against a bunch of fixers. Once was bad enough, though. He prodded a little harder with the tweezers, felt Aiden's arm twitch and strain in the effort to keep still.

"And whose fault is it you're in this state?"

"Yours."

Damien sighed. "_And_ we are back where we started from."

"Yeah," Aiden leaned his head back and stared at Damien along the length of his nose. "Progress."

Damien focused on picking more glass shards from Aiden's arm, each bloodied fragment with a million edges perfectly suited to bury deeper into defenceless flesh. They'd been low on painkillers to start with and it couldn't do more than blunt the pain slightly. Definitely needed to stock up on medical supplies, just in case Aiden couldn't resist throwing himself into the thick of it again. He was right, though, Damien wasn't above applauding when he did. Where'd be the point of living on the edge if you didn't enjoy doing it?

Aiden positively deflated by the time Damien was through with picking his arm clean and wrapped it up. He sunk lower in his chair, momentarily boneless. Some of the mad glint in his eyes had dulled. He flexed his fingers carefully. He wasn't going to be all grace and elegance in front of a keyboard for a while.

"I'll sit you on a sheet of plastic next time," Damien said as he gave the floor a cursory mop with a handful of paper towels. "Look at that mess."

"Let's not," Aiden groaned tiredly. He pulled himself to his feet and walked through the dark room, heavy steps on the old wood, until he stopped by the liquor cabinet.

"I shouldn't let you near any more glass," Damien said and stuffed the blood-soaked towels into a bag, shoved it into a corner. He'd burn it later rather than risk tossing it in the trash. Some animal would doubtlessly dig it up and scatter it all over the backyard. They ran their operations out of a bad neighbourhood for a reason, but it wasn't any excuse to be sloppy.

"Try to stop me."

Aiden had all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop, clattering around, pulling out bottles and holding them angled toward the light to check their labels. An appreciative whistle escaped him when he, apparently, found what he'd been looking for.

Damien, still hung up on the bloody mess in the kitchen, only started paying attention when he heard Aiden uncork a bottle, closely followed by the light tinkling of liquid being poured.

"That better not be my good scotch!" Damien warned, already halfway across the room. "I'm saving…"

He nearly walked right into Aiden's outstretched arm and the glass it held out toward him. He could smell the scotch, definitely the good one, damn. The damage already done, he took the offered glass.

"Alright," Damien said. "Just for you."

"Don't be full of yourself. I know how you got that bottle."

Damien narrowed his eyes, but realised he didn't mind all that much. "It's worth a toast, at least."

"Here's to excess," Aiden offered solemnly but the grin was obvious even in the dark, lingering in his tone. "For it leads to success."

"I've always liked the way you think, Aiden."

They clinked their glasses and drank in silence. Aiden had been very generous when he'd poured, like any other uncultured punk. Damien let it slide, though, after taking a first, slow sip, savouring the taste as the scotch burned its way down his throat and left a pleasant, addictive tingle on his tongue.

"Ah, that's good stuff, worth every cent I didn't spent on it," Damien declared and took another, much greedier sip.

Damien watched as Aiden downed the scotch, then refilled both their glasses, standing in silence for once, together in the dark.

"You can crash on the couch, if you want," Damien said. "Can't let you loose on the street in this state. You'll hurt yourself and I'll have to train myself a new minion."

"I suggest something small," Aiden said, hugged the scotch close and wandered off towards the living room. "So you can actually handle it."

Chuckling, Damien turned off the glaring white light under which he'd bandaged his partner before he followed him.

Aiden was sprawling on the couch, shoes kicked off into some dark corner. An old floor lamp stood off to the side, shedding glum orange light as the only source of illumination.

"I can handle you just fine," Damien said and let himself fall into an armchair off to the side of the couch. "Give me the bottle, will you?"

"Maybe a guinea pig."

Aiden held out the bottle, a little awkwardly in his bandaged hands and giving Damien a quick, horrible vision of the bottle shattering on the floor and spilling its precious contents on his threadbare carpet. It'd be much worse than a little blood in the kitchen and Aiden would never hear the end of it, either. But the transfer went smoothly.

"Yeah, I could do with a little more snuggling."

"I see, 'crash on the couch' is it. Bottle."

Damien filled his glass before handing it back. "Now you're just overestimating yourself."

"Sorry, I forgot that's your territory."

"Don't let it happen again."

They killed the too expensive scotch together, trading the bottle back and forth, spiced with clever words even as the alcohol slowly did its work and the responses slowed while the night dragged on.

"I've got a confession to make," Damien said with a snigger barely hidden in his tone.

"You're a black hat hacker," Aiden deadpanned. "I'm shocked." He'd thrown one leg over the back of the couch and was staring at the ceiling as if the pattern of brown water spots was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen.

"That too," Damien agreed with self-satisfaction. "But I've been reading your diary."

"I encrypted it. And it's not a _diary. _It's a _log._"

"Yes, very badly encrypted," Damien snorted. "I'm your teacher and sometimes you really make me despair."

Aiden was silent for a long moment. He manoeuvred the glass of scotch about until he could take a sip without spilling it all over himself. "Wait, the one where I talk about my favourite stuffed toy animal? You didn't believe that one, did you?"

"What stuffed animal?" Damien tried, but he could already tell he'd botched that one. Took him an entire second to say it. "It was the other one, where you say, you know…?"

Aiden laughed. "Yes? Come on, impress me with your awesome cold reading skills. I'm your teacher and sometimes you really make me despair."

Damien had his mouth already open in a retort, but it apparently took too long. Damn, should have known the man wasn't keeping a diary about childhood toys… must be the scotch. Aiden twisted his head far enough so he could look at him. He was grinning. "Got you, didn't I? Stop going through my stuff. The real thing's booby trapped, anyway."

"I love myself a challenge."

Aiden settled back down with a sigh. "You'll hate this one, trust me. And I'd have to put a bullet through you."

Damien arched his brows, an entirely private expression when there was no one paying attention. He said, "Your laundry's that dirty? God, I choose right."

"Wrong way around again."

Dimly, Damien remembered he should check the USB drive, just to make sure it hadn't been damaged, or if it was the right drive in the first place. It'd be ridiculous to have gone to such length only to come away empty-handed.

Aiden shifted again, then groaned when some inadvertent movement reminded him of his lacerated arms. "I'm going to stay put for a while," he said. "You'll have to beat up your own guys."

"Got a little pet project for you, anyway," Damien said. "I've been thinking about ways to expand the Profiler. It's a chip in the security armour, personal details and all. Personal _bank account _information."

"I think I like where this is going."

"Needs to be set up properly, though," Damien mused. "Bank security can be a bitch and I don't want to tip them off to any weakness. I'm putting all my faith in you." He paused for effect. "Impress me, come on."

"I'm not here for your entertainment."

"But you are, kid. Didn't you know?"

Aiden said nothing and Damien added, "You do a good job, too."

"Are you complimenting me? You're losing your touch."

"Scotch talking."

"Just don't try to hug me, I'd have to hurt you."

Damien was silent, lost in the oddly warm, nostalgic lethargy of the alcohol slowly doing its work on his thoughts.

"I really meant what I said, though," Damien asserted, earnest now. He took his feet from the table where he'd rested them this past hour. He lifted the scotch to the light, judging its meagre remains.

"Which part?" Aiden asked. He seemed half-asleep by now, crashing from combat-comedown and fading painkillers and too much good booze. He watched Damien from slack-lidded eyes, then reached out and put his glass on the table beside Damien's.

Damien took a deep breath before he answered. He carefully measured the last drops of scotch out between them. Barely a mouthful for each, barely more than a gesture.

"One day, you'll burn," Damien said. He didn't much care for how sagely that sounded, how old-hermit-in-a-cave. They made a good team, best he'd ever been part in. Aiden was vicious and viciously _smart_. Still a bit rough around the edges, of course, but damn quick on the uptake. From one moment to the next, Damien could get places he'd have to circumvent, cheat and trick before, and some doors had had to remain closed even so. Sending Aiden in was like deploying a guided missile, then sitting back and watching the mayhem. There was only so long it could last, though.

"Don't worry," Aiden assured him with a slow smirk. He pulled himself up on one elbow and reached for the glass again, holding it in midair between them. "I'll take you down with me."

Damien picked up his own glass, held it against the light to watch it shimmer, like dirty gold and fire.

"How about a last toast?" he asked.

Here's to me, and here's to you,

And here's to love and laughter-

I'll be true as long as you,

And not one moment after.

* * *

_End of _A Fatal Thing_

* * *

**Author's Note: **I'm assuming that neither Aiden's nor Damien's personality was quite as abrasive before Lena's death or before being crippled, respectively.

While I really love a lot of the writing in this game, the relationship between Aiden and Damien could have been handled better. We are told in one voice-over that they fell out after working together for a long time. That's not enough, especially when so much of the game's plot actually hinges on their personal issues with each other. They must have got along very well at some point and you don't really see any of it, nor how it changed after the Merlaut job. So, yeah, it fascinates me. There's also Damien behaving like a jilted ex throughout the game, which I thought was an interesting approach.

I googled "Irish toasts" for that last bit. No idea how Irish it is and while it's extremely cheesy, it also fits very well.

There is NO TAG FOR DAMIEN! Wtf?!

* * *

**Revised **on 31/May/2015 and 03/May/2016


	6. All Good Things

[summary: the immediate aftermath of the merlaut job and its fallout]

[this takes in september 2012]

**_All Good Things**

* * *

_"An incident at Mad Mile's prestigious Merlaut Hotel has put the police on alert. Details are still sparse, but it appears that a yet unidentified man, when approached by hotel security, attacked and subsequently fled the scene. Security personnel has been injured, one man is being taken to hospital. Police are at the scene, but the circumstances remain vague. Road blocks are in place and police are still searching the premises and surrounding area. An official statement by the police is expected within the hour…"_

Damien tossed the remote at the television. It bounced off the screen and skidded over the floor, landing in an empty pizza carton. The news droned on as Damien got up and marched across the darkened room back to his desk.

_"Speculations are running high. Was this a foiled terrorist attack?"_

People were too quick to hysterics, really and for all the wrong reasons. Damien glanced up again. The news had pulled some so-called 'experts' from their asses. Shit, just how big was this getting anyway?

There weren't going to be answers on the news, Damien knew that much. He leaned forward on both hands, watched the logs on the screen, clinically mapping out the exact shape of today's disaster. Without taking his eyes away, Damien fished his chair close, sat down. He had a feeling he'd be in this very place for many nights to come.

_"… could it be this was the beginning of a spree killing rather than a terror attack?"_

Somebody else in the system. Somebody _else _tripping the alarm. He knew it hadn't been him, after all, he'd just been caught in the same web. He'd been cut short, but he'd probably had enough to track him to his source, find the little shit and turn his life to hell for ruining his run tonight.

The Merlaut had been a stroke of genius, best idea Aiden had had in weeks. _Rich _hunting grounds if ever there were any. Ripe for the picking and a new security system, but riddled with its out-of-the-box exploits. If this other hacker hadn't been a fucking amateur. If _Aiden _of all people, hadn't suddenly run scared…

The flickering light from the television changed and drew his attention back. The host abruptly interrupted her 'expert' and went on to comment on live footage from a police helicopter. It was trailing a car through the traffic of downtown Chicago. A white or silver Sonarus, by the shape of it, easy to track against the rain-darkened road. Police must have seriously underestimated the size of their perimeter, because Aiden was already well beyond it and going at breakneck speed through evening traffic, police cruisers visibly struggling to keep up.

As Damien watched, the Sonarus braked abruptly, pivoted in a nearly perfect 90 degree angle and vanished into an alley, where the helicopter lost sight of it, blocked by tall buildings.

Damien's phone rang. He ignored it for a long while, didn't even need to look at it to know who was calling. _Now _Aiden remembered he was supposed to have nerves of steel, _now, _when it didn't matter anymore.

The helicopter gained height, circled the block of houses and still nearly missed the Sonarus break through into a main-street again. Police cruisers had managed to gain on him, advancing from one side. The Sonarus backed up, turned and sped down the other way, drifted around a corner and wiped across the sidewalk. The helicopter lost sight of it again.

The phone kept ringing. Damien sneered at it before he swept it up and finally answered.

"My boy, you are on TV," he announced with acid cheerfulness.

"I'm coming to pick you up," Aiden said and if anything, he seemed calmer than ever. The engine roared in the background, screeching of car tyres and metal as he forced his way through. Sirens were audible only distantly as he gained on his pursuers.

"You've got half of CPD trailing you," Damien pointed out dryly. "And I don't think have enough lemonade for all your friends."

There was a pause, something crashed on the other end of the phone and Damien turned back to the TV in time to see Aiden bring his car around a sharp turn. A compact car failed to stop in time and caught the Sonarus' tail, shoved the bigger car over the sidewalk and almost into an elevated train pillar. Instead, Aiden managed to yank his car around just in time, the vehicle tore open lengthwise on the pillar, Damien heard the howl of the metal through the phone.

"I'll shake them," Aiden said. He needed a moment to free his car from the pillar, had to ram his way past a police cruiser and the helicopter lost him again as he followed underneath the train tracks.

"You have twenty minutes to pack," Aiden continued. "Too many people got a good look at me in the Merlaut. They can find me, they'll find you."

"You can never make it in twenty minutes," Damien observed. "They've almost got you, my boy."

"Damien!" Aiden snapped. "Everything's gone to shit. I don't know what happened, I'm not going to take chances. And I won't let _you. _Be ready."

Aiden cut the connection before Damien had a chance to argue. Stupid boy, really, thought he had any say in it…

Damien stood in the living room, while the TV kept at it — back to the 'expert', now that the police was casting about in the dark — and the countless lines of logs spread out across all his computer screens. Despite himself, Damien listened for telltale signs outside, for sirens, abruptly muted as too many cars made a turn into the lane, coming from all sides. He heard nothing of the sort, though.

But much as he hated to admit it, Aiden had a point. There were only two ways left for this to go. The cops would catch Aiden, and while Aiden wouldn't talk, he wouldn't have to. The cops would unravel his life and inevitably, it would lead them back to Damien. If the cops _didn't _catch him, in the days to follow, everything about tonight would be analysed and traced until the pieces all came together. Damien had left too many traces in the Merlaut's system.

Sooner or later, someone would show up on his doorstep. There'd better not be anything interesting left for them to find.

_"Coming up only on WKZ: Exclusive footage from the Merlaut. Stay tuned." _

Damien sat back down at the desk, quickly going through his data, sifting through terabytes of valuable information in mere minutes. It was his life's work, even if the sentimentality of it nearly made him gag. It _was, _though. Pieces of knowledge, account and credit card information, company secrets, dirty secrets, profiles of potential marks… all on his fingertips to take and use and sell to the highest bidder.

He transferred the most important things to two laptops, both sitting idly by his side, tiny and feeble in front of the servers. He wouldn't be able to take everything, not like this.

_"These are recordings from security cameras in the Merlaut's lobby. We would like to thank the Merlaut management for allowing us it broadcast these. The faces of guests and staff, have of course been blurred out." _

Damien turned back to watch the television again, listening with one ear to the chattering of his hard drives as they worked to preserve his precious data.

The Merlaut's security cam footage was a little jumpy, black and white, cameras moving around the lobby at utterly predictable intervals. Damien knew they had barely caught Aiden, not while he was still in control of the situation. The angle of his cap shadowed his face from above and he was too average to identify him by his stature and build alone.

Damien watched and felt his mood darken with every passing minute, seeing what there was, how _perfectly _everything had been going. And there it was, the exact moment everything changed. Aiden swerved to the side, still in his casual stroll, an already failing attempt to avoid attention. Even Damien could see the agitation of the security guards scattered around the lobby, could see them as they left their places to close in.

Aiden dropped the phone into the pocket of his jacket — the moment Damien had been disconnected and it made him curse and seethe just watching it. He could tell Aiden wasn't going to make it to the doors, not by the way the doormen had already shifted to block his path. Aiden took a running start anyway, collided with one of the two doormen at full speed, took him down. The camera footage stuttered, took away some of the speed and precision of the move, left only the sheer brutality of it. Damien thought he might hear the man's jaw break as it collided with Aiden's elbow.

The other doormen lunged for him and got a hold of his arm, tried to trip him and failed. Aiden used the moment, reached past the doorman and pulled the man's gun. The guard tried to block him, but Aiden slipped his free hand around the man's chest and up over his throat. With the guard firmly between himself and the other security, Aiden edged backwards through the door and shoved the doormen away as he turned and bolted.

_"The man has not yet been identified, but the police are positive they will soon attach a name to the attacker." _

A change in rhythm in the chattering of his hard drives brought Damien back. All done. All he could take, anyway and no sign of Aiden yet. He was fairly sure the news would report an arrest immediately, so Aiden hadn't been caught yet…

Lights washed through the room as a car pulled up the driveway. Damien took a deep breath.

He had a failsafe installed on his system. One click and the thing would wipe everything beyond any hope of recovery. Maybe, with enough time and skill, some police technician could reconstruct a few bytes of data, not enough to trace him and certainly not enough evidence to convict, should it ever come to that.

The dialog box was open, mirrored on all screens, looking innocent enough. Just one click, and it'd be done. _Are you sure?_

Instead, Damien got up and walked to the front door, leaned in the doorway. The car parked in the driveway was a small red Bogen 200 in pristine condition, except for it's smashed in window on the driver's side.

"You're late," Damien remarked. "You're really losing your touch, Aiden."

Aiden ignored him. He circled the car and opened the trunk, pulled out two canisters and walked toward the house.

Damien frowned. "What's this?"

Aiden gave him a hard look, piercing gaze even in the darkness. "There are six years worth of trace evidence in that house," he said. "I'm not going to jail for this and it's the easiest way to get rid of it all."

He pushed past Damien and put the canisters down. "Get the others," he told Damien and switched on the light in the hallway, pulled a travel bag from the wardrobe and went quickly through the other things stored there.

Damien had only turned around, leaned his other shoulder in the doorway. "When are you gonna apologise?" he asked.

Aiden glanced up briefly and said nothing, slung the bag over his shoulder and made his way to the living room. Damien heard him rummage around, packing what he thought he needed, while Damien didn't move an inch. The longer he stood there, the stronger the smell of gasoline from the canisters became.

Damien waited. He wanted a cigarette. Giving up had been the worst choice he'd ever made. He couldn't recall, now, why he had done it. A moment of fearing his own mortality, perhaps. As if it mattered, really, as if it made any difference when he had always known he wouldn't die peacefully of old age.

Aiden returned to the hallway, dropped the now full bag and stood facing Damien. He'd taken off the cap, stuffed it into his pocket, leaving his face without treacherous shadows for once. He seemed mildly puzzled.

"Why are you just standing there?"

"What the fuck happened today?" Damien asked. "What were you thinking?"

"What was _I _thinking?" Aiden asked back, baring his teeth a little into the beginnings of a sneer. "_You_ tripped their security. It was all going south after that."

"And now you want to blow up my house," Damien concluded. "I made no mistake. It's you who disconnected me too soon."

It seemed to be Aiden's day to not giving Damien what he wanted. Right now, he wanted an _admission, _or at least a discussion. In many ways, it'd be better if they would be shouting at each other.

Aiden pushed past Damien without another word, returned to the car, put the bag in the trunk and brought two more canisters into the hallway. He put one down, but unscrewed the other. The stink increased almost immediately.

"Last chance, Damien," Aiden said, his voice hard. The point was clearly not negotiable. They could push blame back and forth for hours, until the police finally tracked them, but it wouldn't change a thing. The damage was done, neither of them could go back and replay the past.

Damien felt a scowl tighten his face. He pushed himself away from the door. "Give me five minutes," he said darkly.

In a way, this had always been setup to go up in flames. It was their headquarters, their base of operations and it had always been meant to be abandoned if the bloodhounds got too close. The most valuable thing in it were the computers, but he had already taken care of that. What remained, other than that, barely took the five minutes he had demanded. A handful of fake ID's, a set of phones and the laptops he had stuffed with data before. Aiden had apparently already taken all the weaponry.

By the time Damien was done, the house already reeked of gasoline, soaking through the worn carpet and into the old furniture.

The dialog box still filled all screens, still patiently waiting for the end. When Damien returned to the living room, he found Aiden looking at it pensively.

"Now what…?" Damien asked. Aiden gave him a brief look, then reached out and hit enter, just like that, no ceremony, no _reference. _It meant nothing, maybe it never had and now it was gone. The progress bar filled up as it erased the data, took barely ten seconds to do it.

"Well that was anticlimactic," Damien remarked. "You should get that checked before you disappoint in a more intimate situation."

The screens turned black and a bright white line wrote itself across all of them: _No OS found on hard drive… _the curser blinked patiently. The whole rig would blow up soon enough.

Aiden picked up the laptops, shoved them into Damien's hands as he walked past. "Let's go," he said.

Aiden parked the little red car across the road, then went back inside to set the fire. Damien hung back by the car, watching the odd peacefulness of the scene, the way the street was empty of anyone else.

The first spark of flame became visible through the windows and it spread incredibly quickly, crawling from curtain to curtain. If it were a scene from a film, it would have been quite a bit prettier, less black smoke and more bright flames. It changed quickly, though, as the fire started to eat through the wooden walls. Aiden emerged through the door, framed by the fire and walking with a certain leisurely stride, as if it was nothing.

Well, Damien thought sourly, no use for that composure now, is it? If he hadn't shot it to hell earlier, this certainly wouldn't have become necessary.

Aiden settled his back on the hood, side by side with Damien.

The house burned quietly for a little while and than an earsplitting explosion took the roof right off, rained glowing shards down on them but neither man seemed to notice. Aiden flicked a burning piece of debris from his shoulder.

The sudden surge of oxygen made the flames lick high into the night-sky. Aiden must have opened the gas valves. There was some minor chance this thing would be considered an accident, but there was no way to make sure of it.

Lights went on in neighbouring houses. It would only be a moment before the first neighbours crowded out into the street. No doubt someone was already calling the firefighters, the cops, too, maybe.

"What now?" Damien asked. "Any other great ideas?"

Aiden didn't answer immediately, seemed mesmerised by the fire in front of them. He'd always liked his destruction, but this time, he had no right to stand there and admire it. This, right there in front of them, was a blazing sign of defeat, the culmination of an increasing list of mishaps.

"I'll drop you off at a motel," Aiden said. He got up and walked around the car. "Get in."

The first onlookers slowly congealed on the burning house, clustering together in small groups, pointing with their fingers, talking among themselves, a few were taking pictures with their phones. Somewhere in the distance, a siren made itself heard.

Damien took his time, kept watching the fire and thought of everything he hadn't been able to save. He had what he needed, though, he could track this other hacker and make sure he got what was coming for him. He'd need to do a bit of prodding to get Aiden to do the really nasty things, but in the end, they'd both enjoy it.

When he thought he'd waited long enough to make his point, Damien pushed himself away from the hood and got into the car. They passed by the fire-engine, just as it turned into the street. Another, smaller explosion stalked them. Damien fiddled with the side mirror so he could catch the last licks of the flames before it was taken out of sight. A dull red glow hung on the sky above.

The silence in the car was almost absolute, punctuated only by the thin hum of the engine and the rushing wind through the broken window. Streetlights strove through the car, harsh white and sometimes the hellish glare of a traffic light as they waited and the silence became worse for a moment, until the green released them.

Chicago was quiet now, an odd counterpoint to earlier, there were no chases here, no police to outrun. Not yet, and if Aiden had at least got one thing right tonight, then there wouldn't be enough left of the house to ever catch up to them.

"You still haven't apologised," Damien pointed out.

Aiden was silent, gaze fixed on the road as if driving suddenly constituted a challenge for him. Damien was almost certain he wouldn't say anything at all and was that _ever_ aggravating.

Finally, Aiden said, "You really don't get it, do you?"

"Get what, exactly, my boy?" Damien asked back. "Because what I get is this: You freaked out. I've never seen you do that before, but I guess there's a first time for everything. You didn't keep it together and I had no time to wipe us from the Merlaut's system. You screwed up and because you screwed up, everyone's onto us now." He paused for effect. "You need to apologise. And _maybe_ I'll forgive you."

"You should have backed out when I told you to," Aiden said. "There would've been plenty of time to wipe everything if you hadn't gone after the other hacker."

"There was plenty of time," Damien agreed. "Until you disconnected me."

"I had to disconnect you," Aiden insisted. "I had to get out of there."

He shook his head, put the gas pedal down to make a traffic light before it turned red. "You see, that's the part you've never understood. It's _my _head on the line when we do things like that. I'm in the middle of it. And because that's the case, I get to call the shots."

Damien forced a little snigger past his throat. He didn't much feel like laughing, but Aiden was completely ridiculous. "This partnership," Damien said. "Is a meritocracy. And since I'm obviously contributing more value, I'm also the one in charge."

It was a harsh assessment, he usually tried to spare Aiden's pride, but while his partner had a surprisingly capable mind, every so often, the street thug in him had trouble taking a hint.

Aiden was silent for another moment, when he spoke again the words came low and clipped, with that growl he got in his voice when he was angry. "We're done."

He didn't make the next traffic lights and stopped a little too abruptly, jolting Damien who hadn't put on a seat belt. He reached out with one hand to steady himself. He'd always hated riding shotgun, even if Aiden was undisputedly the better driver.

"Well obviously," Damien said. "You've just burned it all down. It'll be some time until we're set up again."

"No," Aiden rumbled. "We are _done, _Damien."

Damien laughed. "You can't be serious!"

"You think today was the first time working with you nearly cost me my skin?" Aiden snapped, raising his voice for the first time. The airflow from the open window stole only some of his sudden ferocity. "You keep losing it, Damien. I can't rely on you. And if I can't trust you to have my back, I don't need you."

"Aren't you hil_ar_ious today!" Damien snorted. "Don't blame your mistakes on me. I had your back, I had it covered. Do you think I _couldn't _have called those security back? You just had to sit still, pretend you are a clueless bystander until I got control of their system. It'd have been nothing but a false alarm. _That'_s what happened. Don't give me that grand speech about 'having your back'. I had yours, kid. It's you who failed me."

Aiden shifted his grip on the wheel, resting one hand casually on top, while keeping his right hand on the gear-shift. "Think what you want," he said. "There's no partnership anymore. We split the money and we part ways. That's all there is."

Damien crossed his arms over his chest and looked out the window, watched the lights go by and let his mind go empty. Eventually he said, "Parker Seven."

Aiden gave no answer, but took the next left turn, putting them on route to the motel. The Parker Seven was a good place, fairly central on Parker Square, but rundown enough to have reliable vacancies and no one asking awkward questions. They could lie low for now… Well, _he _could lie low. Aiden seemed to have decided he'd hole up somewhere else until his sanity kicked back in. It was better to leave him his space if he got into one of his moods.

They stopped outside the Parker Seven and the silence fell like a choking veil when Aiden killed the engine.

"I take it you won't be staying," Damien said conversationally. He shook into motion somewhat slower than technically necessary. Aiden was looking straight ahead, hand still resting on the steering wheel. His posture was tense above a flimsy attempt at annoyed patience.

"So that's it?" Damien asked. "You think you're done with me. You think I've… what? Served my use?" He pulled an ugly grin. "There's nothing left for me to teach?"

"It's not worth it," Aiden said.

"You don't understand the first thing of what I do."

"No doubt."

Damien glanced at him from the side, frowned when no other reaction came. "You need me," Damien said.

"I need you to get out of the car."

Damien huffed, but gave up. There was nothing to be done here, not tonight. He opened the door with more force than was necessary, stalked around the car to pick up his bags. Damien leaned down by the open passenger door. "What about the money?" he asked. "You don't want that, either?"

Aiden barely moved, gave him a dark, sidelong glance past the shadow of his cap and the darkness of the car. "You can transfer it. I don't have to stick around for that. I'll know if you try to cheat me. You don't want that."

"Ho ho," Damien chortled. "Threats, is it now? We've come so far in such a short time."

"Yes," Aiden agreed coldly. "Let's not take it any further."

He let go of the wheel and leaned over, got hold of the door and yanked it out of Damien's grip. For a moment, his face was lit by the motel's garish sign, metallic blue and green, crawling over a thin-lipped sneer and dangerously narrowed eyes. "Ta-ta," he said as the door snapped closed. Amazing just how much disdain he put in that simple expression. He sounded almost serious…

There were many things Damien could've have said, of course, but Aiden was clearly not in the mood to listen. It was never a good idea to taunt a killer when he was itching for a fight. Damien _could_ handle Aiden, but sometimes he just preferred not to. Aiden would find some other way to get it out of his system and _then _they could talk like two adults.

Aiden drove off and left Damien standing under the motel's sign. It began to flicker in the slow drizzle of rain. He stood there for a long moment, running the scene through his head again, trying to find the fault, the flaw, the _right words _to make his bullheaded partner understand what had really happened.

They'd had a good thing, for fuck's sake, they _owned _this town together and the stupid kid would throw it all away? Over what? Over his own mistake? Because he couldn't face his own weakness? Street kids, weren't they supposed to get back up when they were beaten down? Not run away with their tail between their legs, which was _exactly _what Aiden was doing. Running away. Like running scared in the Merlaut earlier tonight. No wonder he didn't want to face the truth.

The rain picked up and Damien sighed to himself, slung his bag over his shoulder. He looked around the parking lot until he spotted the dull glow of a sign above one door. _Re epti n_. Lovely place, really. Suitable end to the night.

Damien stopped and turned back around. He pulled his phone from his pocket and called a cab. If they were covering their tracks, might as well do it thoroughly.

Aiden would be back, Damien decided as he settled into the back of the cab a little later. "Grand Aurora Hotel, please," he told the driver.

Once Aiden had cooled off and thought things through, he'd figure out who really was to blame, who'd lost his nerve in exactly the wrong moment. Of course, he'd never admit it, not to himself and much less to Damien. Instead, he'd find some manipulative, roundabout way to make sure that what happened in the Merlaut stayed in the Merlaut. Aiden was like that. Difficult, but probably not stupid enough to let this be the end of it.

At the very least, when he ran out of money he'd learn the hard way that he wasn't ready to do the heavy lifting when it came to hacking. It'd bring him back like nothing else could. He could earn his living taking fixer contracts, but Aiden hated not being his own man. No, he'd come around and in a few weeks, they'd be back in the game with nothing much changed. Except for that score they had to settle.

Damien was rather looking forward to getting even.

He smirked a little in the dark, picturing it.

* * *

_End of _All Good Things_

* * *

**Author's Note:** I'm... dissatisfied... with this. Long experience has taught me not to harp on about such things for too long. After all, why inflict it on unsuspecting readers if I genuinely think it sucks? I don't think it sucks, but it could be better, I just don't know where exactly it goes wrong.

Regardless,_** thanks for reading!**_

* * *

**Revised**_ on 31/May/2015 and 19/May/2016_


	7. Dogtown - Part 1

**Author's Note:** I'm writing this mini-arc solely for myself, it's almost a vanity thing, really. I enjoy writing it, but I have no idea whether it's interesting or entertaining to anyone else. It's also heading some dark places in the upcoming installments. It's currently planned to be in four parts.

* * *

[this takes place in the summer 1993]

**_Dogtown - Part 1**

* * *

The woman walked with an energetic, feathering stride, an athlete's body dressed in a pale business suit, its masculine cut offset by her high heels and perfectly painted face. Large sunglasses hid her eyes and the direction of her gaze. She was not the kind of woman who often walked into the Dogtown Café &amp; Diner on the eastern end of the Wards. But then, she was not the kind of woman who didn't go exactly where she wanted.

Late afternoon in the Dogtown was a busy time, shift workers to and from work stopped by to grab a bite to eat, gang-bangers of all kinds hung around outside, but the Dogtown was mostly neutral territory, insurance all paid up.

The gang-bangers outside had given the woman a wide berth and while her expensive rental was diligently eyed up, no one went to try anything.

The Dogtown was too packed inside, not enough room to give her the same courtesy, but she had no trouble finding her way to the counter. She leaned in under the side-glancing scrutiny of the patrons nearest her.

"I'm looking for someone called Danny Boy," she said after a moment, when Mal, the Dogtown's owner, had sidled over to her and gave her a vaguely worried look. No doubt, he had seen enough trouble walk through his door to recognise it and _no doubt _he had long since made his peace with it.

"Haven't heard that name in a while," he said carefully. The thoughts chased each other across his face, obvious and very clear: he wanted to lie about it, but didn't think he'd get away with it.

The woman waited, poised patience in the blue-collar pressure of the people around her. Even the summer heat failed to leave even a trace of sweat on her immaculate suit.

Mal twisted the dishtowel in his hands, his gaze darting ahead of them before he pointed in a gesture he tried to abort halfway through.

"Table in the corner. The one with the books."

The woman nodded, gave him a cool smile. "Thank you," she said and left the counter.

"Uhm," Mal said, cleared his throat when she stopped without turning back. "Don't call him that? He doesn't like it."

The woman made no answer, but found her way through the crowd with practiced ease, a shark cutting through water, the path closed behind her, covering her tracks perfectly.

The table Mal had pointed her to was slightly overcrowded with five young men. They seemed to be finished with their dinner — stakes of plates and cups, some remnant French fries being used as projectiles in some minor conflict. As the woman came to a halt by the table, all of it stopped. She studied them through the shielding dark of her sunglasses, one after the other as they worked out how to react to her presence. She had to give them credit, though, only one was dumb enough to whistle, the others restricted themselves to some version of a dirty grin.

_The one with the books _hadn't been paying attention to the others. In fact, just passing by one might even have assumed he was some college student, lost in the Wards, cornered and bullied by a bunch of gang-bangers. But then, just a pile of books didn't make a student and he seemed too relaxed to be the designated victim. He'd lifted one leg up and wedged his shin against the table, balanced a cup of coffee on top of his knee.

A book was open in front of him, a pile of others towered at his side. She glanced over their back-covers for a curious collection of science fiction novels and psychology textbooks.

While his friends studied her openly, he took a moment longer, turned first his head toward her and let his gaze trail behind, away from the book as if reluctant to leave it behind and turn his attention to less important matters.

"I'm looking for Danny Boy."

The others jeered a little, laughed. The one with the books frowned and said, "Aiden," in a low-voiced tone that contained, somewhere hidden in its cadences, a distinct warning. _This better be the only time._

"Wow, Aiden," one of the others said, grinning. "Hot chick looking for you, if Leslie hears that, she'll ditch you again."

He didn't look away from her when his friends laughed, held on to a studied casualness, but the corners of his mouth twitched. "That's the funny part, because you wouldn't get to score even if there wasn't any competition."

"Shit, man, you know Leslie can do better than you any day of the week, right?" the other huffed.

"Probably does, too," a third offered and earned himself a round of laughter.

Before their banter took on a life of its own, though educational as it might have been, the woman cut in, smokey voice silencing them with careful precision, keeping her gaze resting on Aiden. "Can we talk in private?" she asked.

He made a show of thinking about it, stretching the time like chewing gum, testing her and her intentions, buying himself time to assess her, prepare some kind of strategy for the conversation to follow.

She decided to throw him a line, took off her sunglasses, met his gaze without blinking for what felt like a long time. Eventually, he looked his friends over and said, "Okay, guys, give us some space."

Without argument or hesitation, the young men filed out of the booth and chatted their way through the diner, making their way carelessly as they went. She watched them go with mild disinterest before she slipped into the seat opposite him.

He let the book fall closed, pushed it aside a little, set the cup on the table and took his knee down, sat a little straighter, finally focussing on her openly.

"You're younger than I thought," she said, honesty for once. She hoped he knew how to appreciate it.

He _was _young, not even twenty, probably tall when he was standing up, long-limbed but densely muscled, dressed in torn jeans and a washed out T-shirt. Tousled hair fell into his face, did nothing to soften the sharp gaze of his eyes, or hide the fading bruise along his cheekbone.

"Why?" he asked.

"You are a member of the Dead Men?"

"_Walking,"_ he said, a little sharply. "Dead Men _Walking. _Important distinction, but I'm not a member anymore. No future in gang violence."

She smiled faintly, studying him again. "True, that. I have a job I need help with."

"Why?"

"I need someone native to the Wards…"

"No," he interrupted, raised his voice just slightly. "Why _me. _You don't know me."

She pretended to play with the sunglasses in her hands, watched them rather than him before she spoke again. "A friend of a friend pointed me in your direction. You sounded… promising. I can hire muscle at every corner, but this job needs a bit more than that."

"Sounds illegal," he observed, unimpressed.

"Do you mind?"

"Are you wearing a wire?" Not missing a beat, not quite serious, but unwilling to dismiss the possibility.

"No, not today," she answered with another smile.

"What did Marston say?"

The remark did take her by surprise and she allowed herself to let it show, if only for a moment. She wasn't here to find a dumb thug, if she treated him like one, he'd just refuse and go his own way.

"How do you know?"

"I haven't been to Marston's gym in years," he said. "You called me Danny Boy, the timeframe fits. What'd he say?"

She leaned her head back, watched him again, gauging him and what he might be thinking, what he might want to hear, what would sway him to her cause. He hadn't asked what it was, it hadn't escaped her.

"Fierce, that's what he said," she offered. "Smart. Stubborn."

"Not interested," he added dryly. And doing a good job of not showing how her list of attributes must stroke his ego. His features didn't soften, didn't abandon the laid-back indifference he was affecting.

"You haven't heard my offer."

"It sounds too fishy already. More trouble than it's worth, anyway."

She let her gaze wander away from him, around the room and through the window, the shabby cars on the parking lot there, the drug dealers and gang-bangers and other lost youth hanging around between them. "So you're content working in that Internet café? Cold booting computers for people too dumb to do it themselves? That's it? That's all it's ever going to be, you know."

She snapped her attention back to him, just in time to catch the beginning of a sneer on his face. He checked it immediately, took a sip from his coffee to hide it. He took a deep breath, turned it into a sigh. "Hard, honest work, says my mother."

"Barely enough to get by, on a good day," she stated. "Enough to drive a man up the walls. It's like cabin fever, when the cabin is everywhere."

She tapped her sunglasses on the table as she continued, "I'll tell you what I see, just now, just talking with you for no more than a few minutes. I think Marston was right, _half-_right at least. You're the man I need, I think. And I've got the offer _you_ need."

"Alright," he said, finally. "What offer?"

She gave him another smile, brighter this time. More teeth. She looked through the window again. "What do you see out there?"

"Is this where I'm supposed to come to the conclusion of 'opportunity'?" He drawled the last word as if it left a bad taste on his tongue.

"That's my line. Cheesy I confess, but true," she nodded slowly, watched him from the corner of her eyes. "Chicago is a big city, and yes, there are opportunities, but that's not what I mean. It's a city full of _problems."_

It earned her a little chuckle, "No shit."

She focused on him again and into that sudden apparition of levity, she asked, "Have you ever killed someone?"

For just a moment, the mask fell and he was _young, _raw and angry and trapped. She had suspected as much, investigating him. She would not just walk up to any random man pointed out to her, plot murder with him in a public place. She was not that stupid. This _could _come and bite her, later, if he failed or broke. You could never trust young men to remember they were supposed to be more than bluster and bravado, especially if they had learned these things on the street.

Aiden stared at her, searched her face as if looking for a hook he could use to tear her open. _Psychological Models of Emotion, _was the title of the book he had been reading. The muscles along his jaw twitched and tightened before he answered.

"Not on purpose," he said.

She let him flounder in the wake of what might be guilt, what might be uncertainty, _what might be _his own struggles with his nature and the future he wanted to avoid. It was the other half, the things Marston had not said, because he was not equipped to identify them. She knew, though, had known the moment Marston had described him.

Irritated, Aiden crossed his arms over his chest, stared at her hard. "Still waiting for that offer."

"It's a necessary preamble," she said, matching his tone and his impatience. "Someone has to die. And I want you to help me. Three thousand if you do."

More money than he had likely ever seen in one place, but they both knew it and so the knowledge carried less weight than it should. He certainly didn't seem impressed. He smiled a little, even, a frosty expression in the summer heat.

"You're not wearing a wire," he concluded.

"You're still hung up on that," she said, bemusedly. "Are you that important?"

He shrugged. "No idea, but I'm not stupid."

"No, I don't think you are," she agreed, a concession. He wasn't going to be sweet talked into something he had already figured out would change his life. He only had to realise it would change for the _better_.

"You're familiar with the Wards," she said, pulling them both back from an edge. Business-like in her tone and manner, confident in ways he still needed to learn. "You have your gang connection, but like you've said, you aren't on the inside anymore. You know how to fight, Marston said it and I can tell. And, yes, you're capable to have more than one complicated thought in your head at any one time. Those are valuable assets. You should trade on what you have. Anyway, there is a man hiding with the Viceroys. He's stolen information from the Club and he's threatened selling it to the police…"

"Bullshit," he interrupted. "You know what Viceroys do to snitches? They bleed them out."

"Not when they stand to gain. The snitch sells on the Club, cops take out a few high-ranking Club members, Viceroys move in. At least, that's the plan. And that, right there, is the problem I'm being paid to fix."

"Messy," he said, still not impressed, still not tempted by the money, or at least controlled enough not to show it if he was. "Do it without me."

He slipped out of the booth, leaned forward to pick up his pile of books.

"That's it?" she asked.

He shrugged, pulled a backpack from under the table, took a leather jacket out and stuffed the books in. "Yes, that's it. I got to pick up groceries before I head to work. I'm already running late."

But he lingered, just a moment. Nothing on his face that would give him away, but the time he stayed longer than he needed to. Like he was asking her to convince him, really, as if he just wasn't ready to face up to what she suspected of him.

He was right, though, she didn't really know him and she had just outlined a very dangerous plan to him. "Information is power," she said. "Who will you sell it to?"

He shook his head, slowly. Smiled a little as he did. "I'm not getting into it. I ditched the Dead Men because of shit like this. I'm not…" and he stopped as if caught, green eyes narrowing suddenly.

She flexed her shoulders, moved out of the booth to stand facing him, too close, she had to look up a little to do it. "How melodramatic," she said. "You're not a killer, is that it? That what you were going to say? It's such a stupid line. It changes nothing about who you are. Beat up some idiot, sell some drugs, kill some stupid fuck, or _work yourself into the ground for the next fifty years_. You're the same man, start to finish. You can use what you have, or piss it all away."

He was looking down at her, still frowning, still not quite as certain of it all as he pretended to be. It wasn't money, she thought, it was about the other things she'd said.

Almost imperceptibly, he shook his head again, stepped aside and began pushing through the slightly thinned crowds. Glancing back over his shoulder, he said, "No."

Left her standing there as he made his way outside, contemplating her options. She _had _ran a risk, talking to him so openly and it might yet blow up right in her face, but if she didn't understand people the way she did, she would be dead already, many times over. He would sit on this and if all the Wards went up in flames in a gang war over it.

She turned around and stalked him, found him outside by his motorcycle, helmet in hand. He rolled his eyes a little when he spotted her.

"Look," he said. "Forget it. I'm out. _Out, _okay? The Dead Men were all over me for weeks after I quit. I had to break a few noses to make them stop. You want a taste? Just keep following me."

She smirked a little. "I don't think you'd get a punch in. You'd hesitate. You think too much about the wrong things."

He studied her, pensively. Then put his head to the side a little. "I'd toss the helmet at your face. Maybe I'd get lucky, but I guess you'd catch it. You still got the sunglasses in your hand, messes with your priorities. Gives me a second, you look like you could fight blind, so a second is all I'll have. You wear the wrong shoes, that's your weak spot. Gets you to your knees in that second, my elbow into your neck before you can drop the helmet and your head into the concrete _or _the helmet, depending how you fall over. I want twenty percent."

She had listened to his outline with growing amusement, not nearly small-minded enough to be surprised or offended at his lack of gentlemanly sensibilities. At the same time, she realised he'd played her. He might as well have thrown that punch, because she felt it connect perfectly with his closing line. The little punk had never intended to reject her offer, she thought she had been talking him into it, while they'd really been _negotiating_.

"Twenty percent?" she repeated.

"This is big," he stated. "It's Club bigwigs on the line and it sounds like it could escalate pretty damn quickly, if they're willing to pay an outside agent. I could end up in the middle of a gang war with all sides gunning for me. Three grand isn't a serious offer. Give me twenty of what you get and I'll help you."

She chuckled, "I guess you're lucky I'm not doing this as a favour, then."

"I don't know. You owing me a favour. Could be useful."

She arched her brows, unfolded her sunglasses and put them on. "Careful there," she warned with strained mirth. "If you think you understand the game, you really haven't understood the game. I'll call you tomorrow."

* * *

_End of _Dogtown - Part 1_

* * *

**More Notes: **Internet cafés didn't really become widespread until 1994-1995, but it makes sense for the world of Watch Dogs to be a bit ahead of us.

The Fixer, as almost all my original characters, had her gender determined by coinflip and I rather like the way she's turned out. I didn't coinflip Leslie, because that could have been a bit of a hassle.

A random name generator produced 'Dogtown Café' and I fell in love with it.

It's possible I might contradict some information on Aiden's past that's found in Dark Clouds, but I think Dogtown takes place earlier than what was in the book.

* * *

**_Revised on 31/May/2015, 24/Feb/2016 and 21/Nov/2016_  
**


	8. Dogtown - Part 2

**_Dogtown - Part 2**

* * *

Aiden played his part. He played _all _his parts and more. He found her mark, Liam Corvis, holed up and under guard in a Viceroy safe-house, deep inside their territory. He found the man and he carefully constructed them a way inside that stronghold. It turned out, Corvis would be impossible to extract without an invading army, which was more attention than her employers wanted to attract.

Instead, Aiden tapped into their phone, using a curious, homemade contraption; a half-gutted phone on one end was the only component she could identify.

She had called herself 'Sonya' on the phone, talking to his girlfriend and the way he said the name made it quite clear he didn't trust a syllable of it. She watched him now, where he sat on the floor, cross-legged beside the pried-open distributer box in the basement of an abandoned house. She watched him while they waited for a call and he pretended not to notice, or at least not to care that she was doing it.

Heat lingered in the basement, worse than out on the street where evening had brought wind and a hint of thunder. Sweat-dampened lines followed the leather straps of the gun holster he wore and he would sometimes tuck and pull on it, less comfortable of its presence than he liked to show.

"Won't the phone companies be able to detect this?" she asked.

"Of course, I don't really have good equipment. Too expensive. This shit? Screws over an entire housing block," he nodded. "If they get enough complaints, they'll even send a technician. Maybe before Christmas."

She settled her shoulder into the wall and looked around the room, ugly graffiti on the walls and a soiled mattress in a corner giving off a subtle stench in the heat. She heard him shift and looked back at him, found him flexing his shoulders into the holster and resettle himself, extend his legs in front of him, crossed at the ankle.

She paid him because she'd known he could track her mark in the Wards, quicker and easier than she could herself, but she needed more from him than just that. She'd paid attention and after their first conversation in the Dogtown, she had looked even closer. Nothing she knew suggested he would know how to tap a phone. It was true, he hadn't been subtle, he lacked the tools and the necessity to be, but it made her wonder regardless. If you _gave_ him those tools…

The phone rang, pulling her from her line of thoughts. He gave her a quick, triumphant grin and jumped to his feet, picked up the phone, smoothing his features before he answered. "Good afternoon, DA Turner's office, Ripley speaking."

She arched her brows, but held her tongue, letting him play out his charade. His voice sounded different, his pronunciation suddenly wiped clean of all traces of a Wards childhood.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Turner isn't available. Can I help you? - - - Ah, I see, yes, we've arranged that a new negotiator will take over the case. She's one of our best, I'm sure we'll all benefit if this isn't being drawn out more than necessary. - - - Yes, she is en route right now and should be with you in half an hour. - - - I don't care if it's convenient. _No _one cares if it's convenient. This is what it's going to be. It'd be best if you remembered who's on the side of the law here. - - - Make sure our negotiator is treated with respect. - - - Absolutely. Better safe than sorry. - - - You'll hear from us."

He hung up, grin crawling back in place of the mask he had affected, selling the story. Not many people would have known your expression will reflect in your voice. Not many would have bothered.

"It's still risky," she observed. "They can have other people they can call. We could be walking into a trap."

He fixed her, always that hard stare as if he was in a contest all the time, a constant challenge to the world.

"This gets you in," he pointed out, quite clearly he had expected something closer to praise than what he was getting. "Gives you the time you need. You just need to off the guy, right?"

She hesitated, gaze wandering around the room for a moment before she answered. Slowly, she said, "Not quite."

"What?"

"I need to make sure he hasn't stashed away some kind of insurance in case of his death. At the very least, he'll need it to make sure the Viceroys hold up their end of the bargain."

She could see him processing the new information. She hadn't expected him to be quite so thoughtful, she had steeled herself to deal with self-aggrandising posturing and arrogance. She had seen it coming, seen him rub his asking price into her face as if she was the amateur and not the other way around. What she had got, however, was a very young man with more potential than he seemed to realise.

It didn't escape her that he didn't comment on that new development, only turned away and began to dissemble his equipment with quick fingers. "You're here with that rental?" he asked, his back to her.

"Yes."

"Good thing we're in Dead Men territory, then."

She let the reprimand brush off. "I thought the _Walking _part was important."

"It is," he confirmed pointedly. He was done packing and got up, turned to face her again. He had taken a suit jacket from his pack and shook it out in an effort to smooth it. He slipped it on, squared his shoulders into it, tucked on the straps of the gun holster again.

"We'll take your car."

* * *

Hard, thrumming music spilled out through the open windows into the street, loud enough to make the floors vibrate and the walls shiver. All the rooms were brightly lit and the entire neighbourhood could have seen the Viceroys as they hung around the house. A slow trickle of coming and going, cars parked up and down the street. _Everyone _with eyes to see knew something was going down in that place, but everyone who ever got this deep into Viceroy territory knew how to keep their heads down and maybe make a little on the side, too.

The machine-gun fire lyrics stalked them through the house, Aiden pinned behind her left shoulder like a cross between a secretary and a bodyguard. The Viceroys further away from her wolf-whistled only once she was out of their immediate vicinity. She supposed it counted as respect as far as that went.

She had counted at least twenty on the way in. More than enough and no one seemed to care about Aiden's gun, her own or the contents of the briefcase she carried.

"We can talk over there," Corvis said without any prompting. An otherwise handsome, middle-aged man, he seemed weary and disheveled, obviously ill-at-ease with his hosts. He led them into an unoccupied bedroom. The sheets were crumpled and someone's clothes were strewn at the back of the room.

As they walked through the door, she passed the briefcase to Aiden and hung back, gently let the door fall closed. There was no key in the lock, but she'd expected as much. She stayed by the door, only turned around.

"Just so we're clear," Corvis began. He picked up a chair from the side of the wall, shook it out so the pair of jeans slipped from it. He swirled the chair around and thudded it to the floor. "My terms haven't changed. Have a seat, lady."

She crossed her arms over her chest, standing just clear of the door and by then Aiden was already on him. Aiden got him in a choke hold, got a good grip on him before Corvis recovered his senses. Corvis began to lean to the side, gripping Aiden's elbow. Watching, Sonya knew the move and where it would be going. Apparently, so did Aiden. He followed the move and let go before Corvis had a chance to trip him. Kicked him in the back of the knees instead and Corvis went down to one knee and Aiden pressed him the rest of the way.

"Liam!" she called and took a step forward. "Stop making this harder on yourself."

Corvis made another attempt to free himself, but it was only half-hearted. He glared at her from his downed position, then Aiden yanked him back up and sat him down on the chair he'd so sardonically just offered Sonya.

Corvis had enough sense to realise yelling for help wasn't going to do much good. By the time anyone heard him through the racket, he'd be silenced a dozen different ways. Aiden pulled his arms back roughly, pulled the zip ties from his pocket.

"_Relax _your hands," Aiden ordered and Sonya could watch as the fight slowly trickled out of Corvis. She knew from some of Aiden's research that Corvis had been here for several weeks, as much a prisoner of the Viceroys as he was under their protection. She wasn't familiar with the details of his story, what had prompted him to sell out the Club and run all the way to the Wards. Both seemed to be stupid moves, but it was far from the first idiocy she encountered in her line of work.

Aiden got back to his feet and prowled the room behind Corvis, who wagged his head back and forth, trying to get him back into his sight.

"Shit," Corvis said. He seemed to steel himself, met her gaze and said, "What now?"

Aiden came to a halt behind him and if Corvis heard the rustle of the plastic bag, if he recognised the warning or not, there was nothing he could do, when Aiden slipped the bag over his head and down to this throat, pulled it tight. Corvis struggled, but ineffectively with his hands bound and fixed to the chair. Corvis wasn't going to go anywhere. The plastic bag expanded and retracted with his breathing, more frantic every second. Condensation filled the bag and obscured his face.

Across the room, Sonya found Aiden more interesting than Corvis. Face set in dull concentration, focussed on what he was doing, but not really paying attention beyond it. He looked up to meet her gaze to see her slight nod. Abruptly, he eased the hold and pulled the bag away. Corvis panted wildly, sinking down in his chair. He let his head fall back, putting on something very close to a smile. "You're really good at this," he drawled, still struggling for air.

Unimpressed, Aiden settled both hands heavily on Corvis' shoulder and leaned forward a little. "We're playing a classic game of good cop, bad cop," he said coolly.

Corvis laughed, still coughing in between hasty gulps of air. "Aren't you cute."

"Well, yes," Aiden agreed thoughtfully. He leaned back again, sorted out the plastic bag, making it rustle more than necessary. "I'm the good cop," Aiden said and slipped the bag back on.

Rap music beat through the closed door, swallowing the pitiful sounds Corvis managed to make. Aiden pulled the bag away and watched as Corvis struggled for breath, but never gave him more than two hastily drawn gulps.

"Don't you…" Corvis gasped in a reprive. "Don't you want to ask anything? Or are you just getting off on this?"

Aiden was about to pull the bag down again, but Sonya stopped him with a gesture. She fixed on Corvis.

"Oh Liam, we all know why we're here," she said with mock-gentleness. "And we all _know _how it's going to end. Let me say it again, don't make this harder than it has to be."

Corvis' face was bright red, eyes bloodshot and his entire body had been drenched in sweat in only a few minutes. He was still trying to laugh it off, unsettle her, or perhaps he was just playing for time.

Back in the car, Aiden had said, "Difficult to crack."

Yes, and they didn't have a lot of time to do it. Too soon one of the Viceroys would barge in, just to ask something or perhaps to leer at her some more. There was nothing they could do if Corvis hadn't talked by then and wasn't dead. They'd have to fight their way out of the house and through the neighbourhood and she'd prefer much better odds.

"You'll kill me," Corvis said. "Or your boy-toy will. I don't know why I should give you anything."

"Because we have at least an hour before any of your _friends _will wonder what's going on," she said reasonably. "An hour can be a very long time."

Without warning, the music cut out and a shockwave of silence washed over them, froze them in place for barely a second. Corvis was the first to recover, as if in slow-motion Sonya saw him draw a deep breath to use the tiny opening and shout for help. The very same instant, Aiden snapped forward, wrapped a hand around Corvis' throat from behind and the other down over his mouth, dragging the man back against him for more leverage.

The yell dissipated in a muffled screech, probably not loud enough to be heard in the next room. This time, Corvis didn't stop struggling, tore his body sideways and forward, made the whole chair bounce, trying to free his mouth while there was even a hint of an opening.

Sonya took a step back, placed her hand on the doorknob. If someone tried coming in, she'd pretend she'd been about to leave and slip out, hopefully without anyone getting a good look inside and at Corvis. She'd block anyone, for better or for worse.

Outside, Viceroys yelled at each other, obviously annoyed at the lack of music. It wasn't clear what had happened, Sonya guessed a dispute over the choice of music, or perhaps some idiot had just tripped over the cord.

She waited, one hand on the doorknob and the other on the gun at her hip as the minutes trickled away agonisingly slowly.

The music started up again, drowning out any argument the Viceroys might still be having. She dared to relax a little, looked back at Aiden and Corvis just in time to see Aiden snatch his hand back and yelp. Corvis must have bitten him.

Aiden took a step to the side and punched him in the face, hard enough to make Corvis' head snap to the side. It'd leave a bruise, make a point, but it also bought Aiden a precious second in which to catch and hold her gaze. He wanted to say something, she could tell, but they wouldn't get the chance to talk strategy, not in front of Corvis.

"God, you amateurs," Corvis said and chuckled as he pulled himself straight again with some effort.

"Shut up!" Aiden snapped irritably. Without any further preamble, he pulled his gun and came around to face Corvis, waved it in his face while looking over his shoulder at Sonya. "I say we just shoot him!" Aiden said. "Be done with it. Half the job is better than nothing, isn't it?"

"Are you stupid?" Sonya asked back, sticking to some imagined script she had never seen. Her little punk was improvising, picking up the pieces as they'd been thrown at him. All she had to do was play her part.

She made a dismissive gesture, scowled. "Put that thing away until I tell you to use it."

He waved the gun some more, than gave an angry snarl and lowered it, hovered in the open space between Corvis and Sonya in a pretence of indecision.

"Just can't get the help these days, right?" Corvis remarked, still red-faced but inappropriately entertained. Aiden snapped around and punched him again in exactly the same spot as before. Corvis' amusement faltered under the new pain. Aiden raised the gun back up, put the muzzle under Corvis' chin and pushed up, forced him to face him.

"Doesn't matter," Aiden snarled. "You're going down."

Corvis found a dirty grin and put it on, but a hard jab of the gun made him keep his silence.

"You are _not_ shooting him," Sonya stepped in. "Now do what I tell you."

Aiden took his time, bared his teeth in Corvis' face before he retreated in a sense of tense, jerky movements, gun lowered again as he turned to face her. With his back to Corvis, he was much more composed, but spoke through clenched teeth anyway. "He's not going to snap, what do you want me to do?"

"I like the part where I'm not shot," Corvis piped in. "And don't punch me again, thank you. I've got a solution for you."

Sonya came forward a few steps until she was close enough to tower over him as she stared him down. Aiden began to pace through the room, agitation obviously riding him hard.

"Let me hear it," Sonya said. "Better not be wasting more time."

Corvis chewed on his lower lip for a moment, glanced from her to Aiden and back. "The thing is, I don't have anything with me. The Viceroys would just use it and I'd have nothing. It's in a safety deposit box. Got someone I know. Owes me a big favour. Club don't know about him, Viceroys can't get to him. Without the evidence I'm just some guy who tells a few stories."

Aiden had circled around, was back behind Corvis and was giving the plastic bag a kick. It chittered across the floor.

"You give up the evidence and I don't kill you," Sonya said. "Is that your idea?"

Corvis shrugged. "I'm not dangerous to anyone anymore. I can lead the Viceroys on for a while. Cops will take me anyway, I can still give them _something, _but the Club's going to live it down." He hesitated, twisted his head a little, trying to get a look at Aiden.

"Minor drawbacks for everyone," Corvis concluded. "But everyone can live with it."

He pushed his chin forward. The bruise along his cheekbone was beginning to show. "Unless you want your boy to beat up on me a little more and then, you'll still not have what you want."

"You'd be dead," Sonya said. "It gains you nothing when I lose."

Corvis sighed. "Look at it this way, I'm not going to enjoy dying, this way especially, but that's all you'll have."

Sonya said nothing, considered and not all of it was acting. Time was ticking away and every second that passed made their position more precarious. "How?" she demanded. "How will you do it?"

"Well you'll untie me and I'll call my…"

"No," she interrupted with thin impatience. "You give me everything. Your contact at the bank and how to access your safety deposit box. I can call one of my people right now and make sure. _Then _we'll leave."

"Then you'll shoot me," Corvis said.

"I give you my word?" she offered with a vague smile. There was no reason to pretend otherwise, he wasn't going to buy it, not from her. Aiden picked up the thread as if they'd rehearsed it.

"Come on," he said to Sonya. "Man's an asshole, but he's down and out. If he can't give anything to the cops, he won't make witness protection. The Club can get to him in jail. We don't have to kill him in the middle of Viceroy territory."

She eyed him across Corvis' shoulder. "You're worried about that."

"_Yes," _he hissed. "Yes, i'm worried. It's the _Black Viceroys._ They've got some weight, alright? Messing with them is bad for your health."

She thought about it, narrowed eyes and her gaze moving from Aiden to Corvis, contemplating her chances. She pressed her lips into a thin line, then, finally nodded, slowly and almost imperceptibly.

"He lives," she told Aiden, than turned to look at Corvis. "But he gives up his information right now."

_Come on, bite, _she thought and didn't let it show. The calculations ran visibly across Corvis' expression, but changing too quickly to be clearly labelled. He'd been rattled, of course, by their sudden appearance, by the asphyxiation, by the unexpected appearance of an opening. No doubt, Corvis had been around, he knew things well enough to know he couldn't quite trust them. Aiden's youth was selling his lie, the hints of breaking at the seams, a man out of his depth and too inexperienced to hide it. But it didn't depend on whether Corvis believed Aiden, it depended on whether he believed he would get to _live_ if he gave them what they wanted.

Aiden was still pacing, seemingly growing more nervous by the second. In fact, Sonya thought he was beginning to overdo it. He had allied himself with Corvis, if Corvis thought he couldn't rely on him he'd just close up again.

"Sit _down,"_ she ordered sharply.

Aiden stopped, pivoted on one heel. Marching past, he stopped by Corvis' side and leaned down. "Fucking take the deal, you dumbfuck," he hissed into his ear.

He picked his seat on the edge of the bed, ready to spring back to his feet instantly. Sonya turned her attention back to Corvis, studied him in the comparative silence. Corvis had a difficult decision to make and the time it took alone would have made it clear that he didn't like any of his option. Which was, really, the point. There were countless different ways to put the thumbscrews on someone.

Corvis took a deep breath, slipped down a little in his seat. He glanced to the side, to Aiden, in an effort to assess him. Aiden had been flip-flopping throughout their little talk, gone from cooly controlled to aggressive to uncertainly desperate. Not the man you'd want to rely on for your survival…

"You're safe, asshole," Aiden said, feeling the scrutiny. "She's not going to kill you if you give her what she wants. I swear."

… but if he was all you got, you'd take it, wouldn't you?

"Or you keep stalling," Sonya added. "Your choice."

Corvis let his eyes fall closed. When he opened them again, he looked back at Sonya. "Alright, alright," voice dropped to a resigned whisper.

It took more prodding than that to get him to spill everything and a few more well-phrased threats to make sure he wasn't trying to lead them on. He told them the name of his contact, what to say and what _not _to say, how to get to the safety deposit box in the bank. And at the end of it, it was still a risk, if only a calculated one.

The Viceroys had started wearing Corvis down long before Sonya had showed up. This, all of it, hadn't been his plan. Corvis had reduced himself to a pawn, there were only so many moves left to him.

Finally, Sonya nodded, "Okay, thank you. I'll make a call, make sure this is legit."

She slipped out the door without leaving much of a gap, found the nearest Viceroy and got him to show her to a phone.

* * *

"So what's your story, kiddo?" Corvis asked when Sonya left. He could just about make him out behind him, perched on the edge of the unmade bed.

"I don't have a story."

Corvis chuckled. "Come on, look at me, nothing to lose, nothing to give," he said, shaking his head. "You shouldn't be here. Look around you, all this hardcore gangster shit? You aren't built for it. I should know, it took me twenty fucking years to figure out _I _wasn't built for it. I wish someone would have told me. Of course, back then, I was too stupid to listen."

Aiden didn't answer and if Corvis felt his gaze on him, it didn't make him much more uncomfortable than he already was. He flexed his shoulders carefully, put his head from one side to the other. He laughed a little, just as humourlessly as the first time.

"You'll want to get out of this while you can," he continued. "You won't listen, I can tell. Money seems good, doesn't it? Not much else to do for a kid of the 'hoods, right? Thing is, you almost had it, you know? You scared me in the beginning, seriously. Wouldn't have _worked, _of course. You should see my boss' right hand guy. You haven't been threatened until that guy does it, a class all his own, let me tell you."

"Why don't you shut up?" Aiden cut in, low-voiced and testily.

"You wanted me to talk, remember?"

"Yeah," Aiden agreed and something very close to a smile slipped into his voice. "You _did. _You can stop now. I don't need your lecture."

"I'm just trying to help, kiddo," Corvis pointed out, though a frown had replaced the world-weary humour of before. "You keep doing this, maybe you'll have a few good years and one morning, you'll wake up and realise you can't go back and the bloodhounds are about to get you. If it's not the cops, its the gangs, or the mob, or some random fixer earning her own living. I guess it sounds like fun, early on, and then, you know happens then?"

Dryly, Aiden said, "The suspense is killing me."

"Ha ha," Corvis made. "It's not really funny, because eventually you just start _losing. _Someone gets the jump on you, it always happens. Someone always gets hurt. If you're lucky, _you _are the one who gets hurt. Or it's your woman, your child, your best friend or just the chick selling you coffee down the road. And that's going to stack up, you know. You won't stop losing, you can't protect everyone and you do this shit long enough, you'll never run out of enemies who want to hurt you any way they can."

Shifting, whisper of blankets and the faint groan of the bed. Aiden got up, stood for a moment, perhaps in indecision, before he walked around the bound man to face him.

"Is that how it was for you?" he asked. "Is that why you decided to rat on your boss?"

Corvis snorted. "Don't give me that loyalty bullshit. There's never been honour among thieves. That's for Hollywood. The real world is just dog eat dog. Loyalty is a question of payment, entirely negotiable. Or fear and intimidation. Usually in some combination of all three..."

He put his head back, stared up at Aiden again, wry smile back on his face. He was going to say something else, something _more, _but he didn't get the chance.

Sonya hurried back into the room, snapped the door closed behind her and went to the briefcase, still open on the bed since Aiden had taken out the zip ties.

"We need to leave," she said. She drew her gun and began screwing the suppressor on.

"What happened?" Aiden asked.

She looked up. "Real cops are here."

She stepped away from the bed and held the gun to Corvis' face. "Good thing his info checked out."

"Oh shit," Corvis said, laughed and looked at Aiden. "You _lied. _Should've known. And I really was trying to help you, you know."

Aiden's expression gave nothing away, it didn't change, but he stepped forward and put his hand on Sonya's gun.

"I gave my word," he said earnestly and Corvis just laughed again, although it came close to hysterics, especially in light of Sonya's moritfied face. Aiden locked his gaze with hers, keeping his grip on the gun and for some reason, she actually let him take it from her hand. It caused a little spark of hope to sneak up on Corvis, but it faltered before it could fully form.

Rather than lower the gun, Aiden held it now himself, turned to face Corvis. His hand was steady, but something else was in his eyes, close to fear, or possibly even awe, but Corvis was the only one privy to it.

Sonya gave him some space but said, "One to the head, two to the heart. And don't draw it out, we've got to go."

Aiden hesitated, brows drawn together into an almost thoughtful expression and the gun still steady in his hand. Corvis calmed, hysterics bleeding away and met his gaze, across the muzzle of the gun, held it.

"One day, you'll be in my place," Corvis said. "You'll regret this moment then."

Aiden pulled the trigger and the sound it made through the silencer was unsatisfying and got lost in the din still pressing through the walls. Corvis slumped in the chair, his body twitched in dying before it went limp.

"Okay, let's go," Sonya said.

She only spared it a quick look, tracking the bullet-holes on Corvis' body, assessing them. Without taking his gaze off Corvis, Aiden handed her gun back.

* * *

_End of _Dogtown - Part 2_

* * *

**Reference: **The name 'Ripley' comes from Tom Ripley.

**Author's Note: **I'm having a phase. I think everything I write is crap. So is everything I've _ever _written. And I want to apologise profusely for inflicting it on the public, even if barely anyone is reading it and I've got to assume those actually know what they are doing...

Also, after some careful consideration I've come to the conclusion that I inhabit a very odd parallel universe in which Aiden Pearce has a very complicated, fascinating and charismatic personality (as opposed to the boring non-entity he seems to be for everyone else.) I seem to be all alone in that universe. You are welcome to visit, however.

I had to split this part because it got really long. Dogtown now has four parts.

I fell in love with Corvis. Can that please not happen again?

* * *

_**Revised on 31/May/2015, 24/Feb/2016 and 21/Nov/2016**_


	9. Dogtown - Part 3

**_Dogtown - Part 3**

* * *

The Viceroys were no idiots, however, and the moment was already lost. They got as far as the ground floor, right to the front door in fact, where a tight ball of Viceroys had already congealed around three men in suits, who seemed both determined and running out of patience.

When the Viceroys spotted them, several of them left their place and planted themselves squarely in Sonya's and Aiden's path.

"Now who the fuck are you?" the Viceroy in her face demanded and stepped closer, right into her personal space, his entire posture a challenge and a threat. There were too many of them surrounding them, it was impossible to be sure which of them the Viceroys considered the greater danger. But for a moment, there was a _chance, _the opportunity to seize the initiative, sprout a clever lie, confound and confuse and most importantly _leave._

And then, someone yelled through the still beating music, "Hey Sand! Corvis's dead!"

The mood tipped instantly and Aiden tensed at her side, shifted his balance just slightly and knocked out the Viceroy in front of him with a headbutt. The man crumpled and Aiden dodged to his right before the other Viceroys could get a good hold on him. It wasn't his first fight, it wasn't even his first fight against such numbers. He was fast and brutal, he knew they didn't even have to shoot him, they just had to pile up on him long enough. There was no time for strategy, for a plan, for anything other than sheer, vicious reflex.

He punched and kicked, pivoted on his heels and slammed the flat of his hand into a face, his elbow into a throat. He kicked the legs away from under a Viceroy, held onto his wrist as the man went down, let the joint twist with the force of the fall and the man screamed in sudden, spiking pain. Aiden let go at the last moment, making the point stick. He threw himself around to avoid a choke hold, snapped his head back and into the chin of the guy who had attempted it. He didn't have more time than that, because then there were too many, gripped his arms and tripped him. He took two of them down with him, but he couldn't free his arms again, couldn't get his feet back under him.

There was no way he could save it after that.

Sonya wasted no time watching Aiden take on an entire Viceroy Crew. He had bought her a moment, drawing all the attention and though some Viceroys hung back around her, one even reached for her to secure her, but it was the more manageable number. She stepped back, freed her arm easily and punched her fist into his throat. She ducked away under another Viceroy's lunge, kicked out with one leg and caught him on the thigh.

She slipped past a third, and put her elbow into his back as she passed and there they were: the three cops. They had spread out a bit when the fighting had begun, hands going to their guns, but none of them had drawn yet. For them, more than anything, the situation would be a hopeless mess and every action they took could be a mistake. Just negotiating with the Black Viceroys _at all _would be a publicity disaster if it got out.

Sonya went for the closest one, slapped his hand away from his gun and drew it herself. She wrapped her arm around him, got behind him and held. He attempted to get out of her hold, but she just held on and he stopped struggling when she pressed his gun to the side of his head. She hissed a warning in his ear.

His colleagues skittered to an uncertain halt in a small half-circle around her, edging in two different directions and trying to flank her. She yanked the cop with her, backward until she had some more space. She stared the cops down and shouted, "Stop!"

It worked on them, though it wouldn't last. The Viceroys who had been going for her followed the order, too, albeit with noticeably less enthusiasm.

Across the room, Aiden had somehow got out of the hold, struggled up on all fours. A Viceroy kicked him in the stomach, toppling him to his side. But he got hold of the leg, twisted the Viceroy to the ground and then rolled further, almost _almost _regained his feet, but a second kick toppled him over again.

For a moment, she took the gun away from her hostage's head, raised it up and fired into the ceiling. A small cloud of loosened plaster and dust came down. It took a little time until the attention shifted back to her.

"Who wants a dead cop!?" she yelled on top of her lungs, riding on the bang of the gunshot.

Gradually, the dog-pile around Aiden unravelled. Vaguely, she hoped he could still walk at all, because if he couldn't, she wouldn't be able to save him.

"Alright," said one of the other cops. "Let's talk about this. No one wants this to escalate."

"Yo, who died and made you king?" a Viceroy snapped and walked up. "My house, my rules." He stared at Sonya. "And this bitch's just broke all of them."

Irritated, the cop turned to face the Viceroy. "Mr., uh, Sand, once someone takes a member of the force hostage, I don't give a flying fuck in whose house it happens. You screwed up enough for one day, let the real men handle it…"

Much as she'd like to watch them tear each other apart, Sonya cut in, "_Hey!" _and attention snapped back to her. "It's not going to be complicated. My partner and I, we'll be walking out of here and then you can finish your pissing contest."

The Viceroys had finally stepped away from Aiden and left him on his own. He was on his back, up on his elbows, looking both battered and strangely amused. He took his sweet time, too, sorting out his limbs and flexing his neck as he finally got up. He looked around and found his gun on the floor a few feet away.

He walked over, looked at the Viceroy standing over his gun and without taking his gaze off him, bent to pick up the weapon, daring him to try anything. It was the only moment of grandstanding Aiden allowed himself, he was careful as he made his way to Sonya, well out of reach of the other Viceroys or the two cops. The latter, especially, were a problem. Whatever they did, it would be justified and they could have little interest in appearing weak this deep in gang territory.

Walking past her, Aiden kicked open the front door, held it open while Sonya manoeuvred her hostage carefully back until she stood in the open door.

"Shoot him in the leg," she told Aiden. There was a moment of hesitation, but she had neither time nor was she in the mood to ponder what it might be. Perhaps he'd hurt his head, it wouldn't be surprising. He aimed and shot and had enough sense to figure out what her point had been anyway.

The hostage yelled in pain and crumpled in front of the doorway when Sonya let him go, blocking the door for a few precious seconds while she ran outside and slammed it shut. With any luck, it would confuse the cops' priorities, cause another moment of confusion.

"This way!" Aiden shouted and she followed blindly, even if he wasn't running in the direction of the car. It was parked the other way, probably too far to reach before Viceroys and cops finally piled out of the door. She could already hear them behind, shouting.

She followed Aiden around a corner and into a backyard, there were no lights. Keeping track of him was difficult and he didn't bother making sure she could keep up. He cut an almost straight line through the neighbourhood, navigated backyards and untended gardens and trash-strewn back alleys without pausing for breath.

Lights, she learned quickly, were dangerous. Street-lamps were a rarity in the area and when there was light, it came from a car, Viceroys searching for them, she supposed. She didn't know what the police were doing. She heard a siren in the distance, once, but it never got close. Perhaps the cops had figured they'd just take Sand's crew and cut their losses.

Aiden broke through a low hedge and veered to the left, along the side of a house wall. He slowed and finally looked back at her.

"You good?" he asked.

"I should ask you the same thing," she said. "You got pretty banged up."

"I've had worse."

He looked around, scanned the surrounding like an animal, picking up scents.

"We can take the car," he said. It was parked in front of the garage and had the outline of vintage muscle car, but it was too dark to be sure. A car easy to steal, however, fast enough to get them out of the neighbourhood and tough enough to keep them going if they were caught.

She nodded, regardless of whether he could even see it or not. He stood a little oddly and his breathing didn't sound quite right, now that she could pay attention. She walked around him and the car to the driver's side. She tried the door and when it was locked, she smashed in the window with her gun.

She got in, leaned over and unlocked the passenger side. While Aiden climbed in, she got to work on hot-wiring the car. It had been a few years since she'd done it and perhaps Aiden would've been better suited, but she decided to leave him. He sunk into the seat with a low sigh and was still after that.

He only moved again to close his door when the car started, the roar unexpectedly loud in the otherwise quiet surrounding.

"Leave the lights off," Aiden said.

It was precarious going, narrow streets, parked on both side and littered with trash-cans and abandoned shopping carts here and there. Aiden gave direction at irregular intervals. The neighbourhood gradually changed, became less decrepit and the street-lamps were working in most places. And after a last turn, they were on the expressway and the glittering lights of the Mad Mile cityscape painted in front of them.

"Do you need a doctor? I know one who won't ask questions. He should be on duty in the hospital."

"I'm fine."

"Whatever you say," she sighed a little, but let it go, let the silence reign in their stolen car. He didn't need to prove anything to her, but there probably was no point in telling him. It wouldn't help.

After a while, she said, "How do you want your payment?"

He didn't reply immediately and when he did, it was at the end of a choked off laugh he hadn't been able to contain. "I don't even know how much it is."

She smirked a little at that. "Fifteen thousand," she said and glanced at him, still oddly huddled in his seat. His head was resting on the window, face lax in the passing of lights. He looked tired and young, fresh bruises and swollen skin. His lip was split, still glistening a little with fresh blood.

"Are you worth five times more than I thought?" She meant it more teasingly than it came out. It sounded too serious.

"Your call," he replied, matching her tone, but not looking at her.

"You need to learn to work in a team," she pointed out. "Three times you pulled a complete U-turn without warning. If I hadn't played into it, it could've ruined everything."

"You managed."

"Yes, I _managed, _but that's not teamwork."

She concentrated on the road as the traffic became thicker around them. They'd need to ditch the car soon, just in case it had been reported. Couldn't trust the cops, couldn't trust the Viceroys not to have some more connections with the cops.

"I'm wondering," she started. "When you killed Corvis… did you agree to this job just for that? I asked if you had killed before and you said no. Was that the reason?"

He said nothing for a long time, then he laughed again, but there was something rough in it this time. "Fifteen. _Grand_," he said.

"Yes, but you didn't know that," she insisted. "When we spoke in the Dogtown, you manipulated me. You made me believe you didn't want the job, but I think you've been waiting for this kind of offer for a very long time."

He shifted in his seat, sat up straighter and squared his shoulders into the upholstery. "You're asking, _seriously_, if I was just itching to kill somebody?"

"If it's making you uncomfortable," she said, but the knowing smile was in her voice. "I won't pry."

"Well, it's bullshit," he asserted and that, too, she decided to let go.

"Now, about the money…?"

"Can you give me, say, five grand in cash?" he asked, quite clearly making it up while he spoke. "And I'll set up a separate account for the rest."

"Have you ever done that before? Set up an account for illegally earned money?"

"Can't be that hard," he shrugged.

A grin stole itself on her face before she even noticed. "For you? Probably not, no."

She considered driving to the next ATM and withdraw the amount, cycling through several cards to circumvent the withdrawal limit. Slow, awkward. Safe. Or she could just drive to a safe-house and get the cash from there. She didn't know if he realised she was taking a roundabout route while she worked out just how far she was willing to trust him.

When she finally pulled to a stop in front of a high-rise apartment building, he didn't comment.

"Get rid of the car and come back here, I'll have the money ready."

He looked around for a moment. "Park it in the alley over there. I'm coming with you."

"You think I'm going to start cheating you this late in the game?"

"I _think _if you really wanted to, I'd have no way to find you," he said, then put his head to the side a little. "I'll get rid of the car after that. I know just the place."

She liked this safe-house, a nice apartment in a normal, middle-class neighbourhood. It wasn't what people thought of when they heard the term. She had carefully constructed a second life for it, made sure her neighbours knew she was a businesswoman, often out of town, but otherwise friendly and moreover _harmless._

She acquiesced.

She parked in the alley and took him home. Or as near to 'home' as was strictly necessary.

In her well-lit living room, she got her first good look at her temporary partner and briefly considered bringing up her guy at the hospital again. Although half of his face was hidden again behind messy strands of hair, he looked oddly pale under the bruises. Some sprinkles of blood soiled the front of his shirt, from Corvis or from the fight afterward. The suit jacket had torn at some point.

"Fix yourself a drink, if you like," she told him. "I'll get your money."

She left him in the living room, heard nothing for a moment and then the low chittering of glass.

When she came back, he had a glass in his hand, generously filled with something clear, although in all probability not water. He had taken off the jacket and leaned on the back of the couch. He seemed to be momentarily unaware of her return, as he put his head back and closed his eyes as he drank.

"You realise you're still trusting me with the rest of your payment," she pointed out and he glanced over his shoulder at her.

"You don't really live here," he said. "But you like this place."

"Yes," she confirmed, walked around the couch to face him. "And I'll leave it behind without a second thought. But not for just ten thousand dollars."

She held out the bundles of banknotes. It wasn't a very neat stack. This money had passed through countless hands already and if their serial numbers were registered anywhere, everyone had long since forgotten all about it.

"Count it," she invited him, but he just took the money with his left hand and fiddled it into the pocket of the jacket by his side, barely looking at it. He took another sip. This close, she could tell it was vodka.

For a moment, she indulged herself in a little fantasy. She could reach out and brush those strands of hair from his face, they had been vexing her all the time. She could cup his face and kiss him. Kiss him hard, taste him, take him, just to see if there was anything he _wasn't _good at.

Or she could do the more intelligent thing, more satisfying for both of them, too, in the long run.

"Look at the world," she said after a moment. "It's wide open."

He answered with a curious tilt of his head, waiting. The money, the alcohol, the fight, the _kill_ had left a hard glint in his eyes. Of course he knew what she was saying, he wasn't slow and stupid enough not to, but he didn't acknowledge it aloud.

"Let me spell it out, then. I prefer to work alone. And I can tell, you'll be better off on your own as well, but sometimes a contract has other requirements. I could kick some jobs your way." She spread out her hands, "Other times, maybe I'll need some more help. You have some useful talents."

"You think I should be a fixer."

"It's just terminology," she dismissed it with another gesture of her hand. "Call it anything you like. It pays well, if you know how to play your cards right. And it means you won't have to make so nice with the gangs and the mob. Make your own rules, like they do."

A slow frown settled on his face, made him look unexpectedly uncertain, something like lingering innocence despite everything. Like this might be, after all, too large for him to comprehend. She wouldn't hold his hand through it. She shrugged slightly and stepped away, walked over to the table and the notepad there.

"You can call me," she said, writing. "Once you've set up your account and I'll transfer the rest of the money."

She tore the page free and walked back to him. "As for the rest…"

"What sorts of jobs?" he asked. His gaze rested on the paper in her hand as if he considered refusing it despite everything it had taken to get this far.

"Whatever is required," she said and added with a wan smile, "Admittedly, today was… _finicky. _Most jobs aren't as high profile, nor as well paid. Of course, most of them aren't legal. That's the point, usually. I don't really think you care."

When he still didn't move, she waved the note and said, "Well?"

He downed the vodka, then held out the glass to her. She took the glass and he finally snatched the note from her hand. He glanced over it, then stuffed it into his pocket. He considered her for another moment, looking for something else to say perhaps and coming up blank. What _did _you say at the end of your very first fixer contract? An hour after your first kill? And in the light of his llife — the parts she knew and those she didn't — was it a monumental step, something life-changing? Or was it just the natural progression of events? He _had, _after all, put himself in exactly the place he found himself in, from the first moment he had brushed her off in the Dogtown.

The moment passed, leaving no visible traces. She stepped back, gave him space, and he picked up his torn jacket, slung it carelessly over his shoulder. He forced himself into a straight posture, no broken or cracked rips, then, as she had originally guessed. Just a little worse for wear, but nothing sheer stubbornness wouldn't overcome.

"Are you good with the car?" she asked, stopped him briefly on his tracks.

He didn't turn back, "I'm good with the car."

* * *

Leslie wasn't the type of girl who'd needle him pointlessly for details. It didn't much matter to her that he'd been in the Dead Men, nor that he'd left them behind. She didn't care he helped his boss move stolen goods rather than just babysit people at the computers. She knew he'd been hired by a fixer and if she wanted to know more than that, she didn't ask.

She was, however, somewhat bothered by his beaten up state and refused for two entire days to be talked out of a visit to the doctor. After that, she kind of seemed to give up, but he got a very concerned call from Nicky instead, who _really _shouldn't have known anything out of the ordinary had happened. Because all the things Leslie knew, Nicky didn't and didn't need to and _shouldn't. _She'd look at him differently. Everything would change and he wasn't sure if he could face that.

He'd rebuffed Nicky with some difficulty, talked himself out of a family dinner with Mom and assumed Nicky'd be sulking for a week or so. More than enough to finally get his shit into order. If he wanted to pursue this career — and it was a big _if_ — he needed something better than just a separate account. He needed an entire separate _identity _to cover his tracks, at least if he didn't want the government to start asking difficult questions of where all the money was coming from. He would leave traces in the world, no one could evade that forever and just a quick look at modern computing gave him a good idea where it was going to go. Because of this, all he could do was make sure none of these traces led back to him.

It was, all in all, a bit of a headache.

Leslie left the shower and carried a cloud of sweet-scented steam into the living room with her. He glanced up at her and watched as she walked past and dove into the kitchen cabinet. One of these days he was going to pay her boss a visit and talk about Leslie's work hours, probably with the help of a baseball bat. Consistently understaffed, Leslie was working double shifts as chamber maid in a Parker Square hotel and some weeks, he barely got to _see _her. One more good reason to find some better future career than… well… cold booting computers for people too stupid to do it themselves. Or carry around boxes of fenced goods after the Internet café closed.

Leslie emerged from the kitchen with a piece of chocolate in her hand and another between her teeth. Sauntering back to the table, she pointed at it and wagged her eyebrows suggestively. When he grinned back, she walked around the table, leaned over him and they shared a kiss around the chocolate.

Still grinning, she settled one hand on his knee, then slid it up his thigh. "You know, I still have half an hour."

The muscle in his leg twitched under her fingertips. He curled an arm around her waist, but said, "I'm waiting for a call. Tighe is setting me up with a forger."

"So?" she hummed, kissed the edge of his mouth, then trailed small, chocolaty kisses along his jaw until she could bite his earlobe.

"I'm trying to make a good first impression," he said. It didn't exactly stop him from leaning into her and pulling her closer.

"And?"

"I don't want to sound like a sex line?"

She chuckled, _purred, _dragged her teeth back along his jaw, "How's that a bad thing? You sound kinda hot."

Sort of aware he was sending mixed signals, Aiden caught her lips and kissed her back, harder than before, no longer softened by the sensual-sweet hints of chocolate.

But he really needed to fix this problem, Tighe had been vague about the forger and Aiden had never been deep enough into this side of the criminal world to have many connections, not enough to get the right people to trust him. He was fairly sure he only had one shot at this.

Leslie laughed around the kiss, slung her arms around his neck and straddled his lap. "I'll throw in a blow-job, too," she smirked.

Someone rang the doorbell.

He leaned his head into her shoulder, sighed, "Later?"

Leslie huffed, but began to disentangled herself from him when the doorbell rang again. As she walked to the door, she looked back over her shoulder and said, "You're the only guy I know who'd say 'no' to a blow-job."

"It's not 'no' _forever," _he called after her, but returned to staring at the phone in front of him. If he screwed this one up, no doubt Sonya could set him up, but he wasn't particularly eager to give her more influence over his life. He depended too much on her already and either she didn't realise it, or she had decided not to use it against him. Yet. He had no illusions what he was to her. She'd burn him in a second if she stood to gain. It was just a question of expediency.

In the hallway, Leslie shrieked in surprise, something crashed and before it had started to filter through to Aiden, Viceroys piled into his living room. One hauled a cursing Leslie along by her ponytail and a bruising grip on her arm. She struggled ineffectively against him, spitting all kinds of dirty words. He recognised the Viceroy holding her from a few days ago and the one right beside him, Sand.

Aiden was on his feet and threw himself around. In the second he had, he recounted all the locations of all possible weapons. The gun, the baseball bat, a goddamn _kitchen knife. _Sonya had been both right _and _wrong when she assumed he hadn't killed before. He could kill, he knew it and he'd take every opportunity to carve these Viceroys up if they gave him half a chance… and then, what? He couldn't kill all of them. Right now, he wouldn't be able to take even one of them down.

He knew well enough when he was outgunned, quite literally — one shoved in his face as a warning before a blow into his stomach knocked the breath from him and doubled him over. Another punch followed, from a different direction, doing a good job of reminding him of all the barely healed bruises and sprains. A hit got him on the side of the head, once, twice and a third, until his brow split.

He stood swaying on his feet, taking the hits and the taunts that accompanied them. Fighting back would only lead to one thing, after all, and if he wanted to get out of this — if he wanted to get _Leslie _out of this, he needed his wits about him.

After a few minutes, the Viceroys were done with him, at least for the time being, and pushed him down to the couch, one Viceroy sitting down far too close by his side. Damn intimidation tactic, like he wouldn't recognise it. Blood was running down the side of his face from his split eyebrow, soiling the couch. He got a good look at his apartment and it seemed like it wasn't _just _him they'd been beating up on.

The Viceroy holding her dragged Leslie with him and pushed her down on a chair, backhanded her when she tried to spring right back up. The Viceroy leered at Aiden, "You have to ride your chick harder, teach her some manners!"

Leslie glared daggers at him, but both Sand and Aiden ignored her, fixing on each other instead.

"Did you think," Sand began, turning in the centre of the living room, gesturing carelessly with the gun. "Did you really think we wouldn't find your ass?"

Aiden had tried not to think of the possibility. It hadn't been terribly likely, he had rarely dealt with Viceroys directly and the Wards were full of people like him, why would anyone even bother memorising his face?

"I hit up Drago, too," Sand exclaimed. "You know? Leader of the Dead Men Walking? Like, I thought if he's still holding your leash, we'd have a problem with them, but it turns out Drago wants to beat the shit out of you, too. Turns out, mine isn't the only business you've ruined. I almost gave Drago a shot at you, but then I _remembered _just how _fucking much your stupid faggot ass COST me_!"

Sand finished by leaning down over Aiden, staring at him from wide eyes, teeth bared in a grin barely this side of maniacal, close enough that tiny drops of spittle hit him in the face.

"What do you think, white boy? Is this going to have a happy ending?"

Aiden resisted wiping his face, blood and spit, but he did hold Sand's gaze. "There's something you'll want more than me," he said, quietly, with as much composure as he could muster.

"Your girl!" a Viceroy shouted to cheers from the others.

"Fuck you," Leslie spat, but had enough sense to stay put this time.

Sand didn't pay any attention to the momentary distraction. He took a small step back and shoved the gun into Aiden's face, muzzle to his forehead and Aiden found he couldn't quite suppress the involuntary shudder going through him. He didn't think he had ever gambled with stakes this high.

"How's that?" Sand demanded. "Because _your brains splattered all over the place_ sounds like a fucking brilliant idea to me."

It was hard not to squint with the gun right between his eyes, hard to _think _with the deadly metal so close. His eyebrow throbbed and for some reason it bothered him more than anything else. Never get those stains out…

He forced the muscles in his jaw to relax, unhooking the bones there just so nothing broke when he said, "What about the fixer?"

His voice picked up strength as he spoke, because he noticed the Viceroys, or at least Sand, were actually _listening. _"I'm small fry," Aiden added. "Everyone knows that. Just trying to earn some cash. _She_'s the one who fucked you over. Wouldn't it be more…" he lost the breath for moment, voice cutting out. He swallowed dryly. Continued, "… more satisfying if you scattered _her _brains everywhere?"

Sand tilted his head to the side, eyes narrowing, the gun stayed where it was and Aiden could see the finger on the trigger didn't relax. Sand was still grinning, "We thought of that, but you… well, you were Dead Men Walking, you're almost one of us. This is _personal_. Besides, that bitch's a large-scale fixer. They sure as hell know how to cover their tracks. Not like you, little white boy."

"I can find her," Aiden insisted.

The frown dug deeper into Sand's expression and the hunger was there. But Sand still hesitated. Stopping now would be too close to going back on his word and he wasn't running a crew if he was easily swayed, he wouldn't have been trusted with Corvis either. Sand needed to finish this, just to salvage his own reputation. He couldn't be seen being talked out of anything. But Aiden didn't think Sand was stupid, not this kind of stupid. He _had to _know that Sonya was the juicier prize, getting to her would do a much better job at redeeming him.

"I can get to her," Aiden said.

It was just a question of expediency.

* * *

_End of _Dogtown - Part 3_

* * *

**Author's Note:** For some reason, it cracks me up that Aiden isn't supposed to be drinking vodka without parentel consent.

What annoys me is the following problem: Sex was scheduled. I could even have managed to give me a female POV this time, but _no, _as per usual, sex turns out to be the less interesting thing to do. (No wonder that Aiden/Poppy thing I'm writing _still _doesn't have a plot and turns cracky every other paragraph...)

In this case, it's also a question of characterisation. Sonya isn't going to ruin a promising business partnership and I don't think Aiden is the type who would cheat on his girlfriend.

So there. Earning my rating labels purely through clumsily written violence. Enough bad porn in fanfic, anyway.

* * *

_**Revised on 31/May/2015, 24/Feb/2016 and 21/Nov/2016**_


	10. Dogtown - Part 4

**Note/Warning: **I'm so glad this is done. Multi-parts are so stressful. I hope you enjoy!

It feels like this part is **a bit more explicit** than previous installments, but I don't think it's too bad. However, as per usual, reader discretion advised.

* * *

**_Dogtown - Part 4**

* * *

It was a good, wealthy neighbourhood, elegant houses set back from the street by well-tended gardens, fenced in to prevent an easy view of the premises, with remotely operated gates for comfort. It was quiet, late at night, this wasn't a neighbourhood that needed regular police patrols, not least because some of the larger houses no doubt had their own security and they _all _had some kind of alarm system.

It was still warm from the day, but Aiden had barely slept in two days and he felt high-strung and tense, both cold and almost feverish, as he watched the house from across the street. A discreet metal plate set into the pillar at the gate said: _Raffaela Benelli. Consultant. By appointment only. _He wasn't sure if it was a cover, or her day-job, or perhaps it was just how you said 'fixer' in polite company. She had been easier to track than he had expected, much to his relief, because the Viceroys weren't leaving him be and he wasn't at his best with some guy constantly breathing down his neck.

He'd _had _the advantage of Sonya actually _wanting _to get back in touch with him, he knew the location of one her safe-houses and all he needed to do was pick her up at any place and follow her home. _Home_ was this and she was there tonight.

At least the Viceroys knew how to take orders if he phrased them with small enough words. They'd parked well out of sight so as not to alert anyone in the neighbourhood, picked the darker paths to bring them to his side and close around him like a school of sharks. Sand slung an arm around his shoulders in a kind of disrespectful camaraderie. It made Aiden itch to grip his arm and twist it from its socket.

Instead, he clenched his teeth and let it happen.

He had entertained the possibility of tipping Sonya off, giving her some kind of warning, but he didn't know how it would help. Even if he somehow managed to slip out of Sand's grasp, he'd just end up as target of whoever took over. He couldn't wage a war on all of the Black Viceroys and this was simply too big — and too embarrassing — to let go for them. They' d have to take much more damage than he was able to inflict to make them drop it.

The only way he could think of was to leave. Leave for _good. _And his mother and Nicky, Leslie, his friends, they'd all be exposed to some kind of retaliation if he did that. All it took to protect them, all of them, was giving them one woman's life. She was someone with a body count, but the thought didn't sit right with him either. _Could _he justify doing this at all? He'd played and he'd lost, should've been more careful…

"You surprised me," Sand remarked into his line of thoughts. "I really thought you were bullshitting us."

Aiden swallowed, forced his voice to sound neutral. "What happens next?"

"Next?" Sand repeated, grinning. "It's called a home invasion."

But then, if anyone should've been more careful, it was Sonya — _Raffaela_ — she should've known what and who she was dealing with.

"Sound familiar?" another Viceroy asked and laughed at his own cleverness.

Aiden ignored him. Sand said, "And unless _she'_s willing to trade on Quinn himself, hers won't go as smoothly as yours."

Not like they could move on Quinn or the Club. Chicago's underworld was more or less cleanly divided in a mutually assured destruction sort of way. Sure, some border disputes happened and every party would seize an opportunity, but no one wanted an all-out war between Black Viceroys and Chicago South Club, Viceroys and the Club least of all.

Sand gave him a shove, not as hard as it could have been, but still enough to make a point. Aiden started walking and finally Sand let him go.

By the gate, Aiden stopped and pulled a remote from his pocket, flipped the switch and the gate opened smoothly.

"Not bad," he heard one of the Viceroy's comment from behind him. It hadn't been too hard. He'd called the company who manufactured the gates, pretended to be one of their techs and got them to tell him the frequency for their remotes. Easy. He hadn't fared as well with the company who had installed and maintained the alarm system. They didn't really have much of a web-presence and his calls had been rebuffed with professional ease. So when he led the group of Viceroys around the house and to the fuze box, he wasn't actually sure if the burglar alarm wasn't on its own grid and wouldn't shut down when he cut the power.

Aiden broke open the fuze box and one of the Viceroys held a flashlight over his shoulder. He found the wires and cut them. It wasn't very spectacular, almost the same darkness as before.

Passing the house before, there had been light from just one window and it had been faint. A desk lamp and a laptop screen, Sonya was still working it seemed. Perhaps she hadn't switched the alarm on already.

Sand and the Viceroys swarmed the house. It's large windows and ground floor doors offered barely any resistance as they pried everything open, getting inside from different directions.

Aiden hung back, trailed after them only reluctantly, but he saw Sonya get up from her desk, lit only by the laptop in front of her. She had to stand still for a moment, before her eyes adapted, but the Viceroys were making a racket in her house, more than enough to tip her off. She went for her desk drawer, tore it open and pulled out a gun, got it up and around just before the first Viceroy was on her. She managed to duck away from his first punch, but collided with another, couldn't get the gun up.

A Viceroy got hold of her bathrobe, yanked at it and ruined her balance. He kicked her legs away from under her and she fell onto her back. She slipped down, trying to get out of the bathrobe, get the gun up. She got a kick in the stomach and couldn't help curl in on herself, groaning.

A Viceroy wrestled her arm to the floor and Sand stepped down on her wrist, hard-heeled boot and the distinctive sound of cracking bone mixed with her choked yelp. Sand kicked the gun away, though she wouldn't have been able to use that hand again anyway.

Sonya seemed momentarily stunned. The Viceroys dragged her up and manhandled her to a wooden beam that held up the high-ceilinged room, pulled her arms up and together behind the beam, snapped a pair of handcuffs on her.

Aiden still stood just inside the room, he heard other Viceroys ransacking the living room behind him, their flashlights cutting through the darkness arbitrarily. Vaguely, Aiden thought they made too much noise. The neighbours were fairly distant, but it was a very quiet area and the large windows would advertise their flashlights to everyone who looked in their direction. Maybe someone would call the cops. Aiden didn't know what he thought about it, but he sure as hell wasn't going to warn them.

"Now," Sand said, facing Sonya. She had gone still, face set in a stark mask, meeting Sand's gaze without flinching, despite how pale she had become, fending off the pain from her broken wrist. "Are you surprised to see us?" Sand grinned.

Sonya said nothing.

"Hey, Sand," a Viceroy grinned. "She looks hot like that."

Sand snapped his head around, glared at the speaker. "Yes, but let's have some discipline. What _will _she think of us, otherwise?"

It was nothing but powerplay, of course, Sand's personal schtick to make sure his crew remembered he was in charge, able to instil random rules when it pleased him. They hadn't minded at all threatening Leslie with rape, though it had clearly been meant as humiliation for Aiden, not something they'd have gone through with. Aiden hadn't been doing a very good job at explaining that to Leslie, however.

Sonya just waited, let Sand talk and insult and play up her fate to his heart's content. Sand gripped Sonya's jaw, pulled it up.

"Wait," Aiden said and finally stepped forward. Sand dropped Sonya's face and looked over his shoulder. Sonya's gaze left Sand only slowly, as if it took effort to fix on anything else. She seemed to go even more still when she saw Aiden, as if something had settled. In a way, it probably had, because the Viceroys' presence in her house had gone from barely explainable to making perfect sense.

Sand gave him a warning frown. "What?"

"I'm sure she has a safe in the house," Aiden said. "Weapons. Maybe they'll help. You lost money on this, didn't you?"

Sand kept looking at Aiden, but reached up and around Sonya. Aiden't couldn't see but he didn't have to, because Sand pulled hard on Sonya's broken wrist and she winced quietly, put her head hard back into the pillar, but kept her composure.

"She won't tell," Sand explained as if he was talking to an idiot. "Fixers, you know? Tough as nails. Even if she's a hot chick."

"Can I try?" Aiden asked, he didn't quite trust his voice, but it was quiet enough and faint enough for Sand to interpret it any way he could and wanted. It was less about what Aiden was going to do, but what Sand _imagined _he would do and whether he agreed or not. Half the time, people just manipulated themselves, looking for confirmation of their own views.

Sand pulled his brows up and shrugged. "Why not?"

He made a wide gesture with hands. "Come on guys, lets give the white boy a little privacy."

The Viceroys filed from the room, left one flashlight behind on a low table off the side of the desk.

Aiden stepped around it's cone carefully, looked at Sonya for a long moment and pulled out the chair from the desk to sit down. The light was too far down to hit Sonya's face, it strove past her, across her chest and over the raised elbow by her ear. For a moment, Aiden thought she was going to say something to him, but she didn't. He could tell she was looking at him, but he couldn't see her expression.

"I'm sorry," he said.

She shifted a little and barely that, but at least she was listening.

"I can't protect you," he continued.

"You trust your new friends?" she asked. "You really think they'll accept this deal you've made over my life? Because that's what it is, isn't it? What you did? Sold me to them to save your own skin."

"What did you think I'd do?"

"Make the right call," she said, raising her voice just a little, anger slowly seeping into her apathy. "Get on the right track. Bending over for the Viceroys won't help you. They'll just kill you later."

"Maybe not," Aiden said and something close to humour almost locked down his throat. "I think they actually like me."

She was silent again, but Aiden didn't have a good grasp on time, he didn't know how long it was or how long he even had. He heard the Viceroys outside, it sounded like they were having fun. It was a strange contrast.

"It's weird," Sonya said, more to herself than him. "I've never been this close to death before. It doesn't feel like it should."

"Will you give me the safe code?" Aiden asked.

"Why?" she asked back, voice barely a whisper anymore.

"Because I have no idea what Sand and the others are up to, but I don't think I want to watch."

She laughed, dryly and a little lost and the edge of something more. Slowly, she slid down the pillar, low chittering of the handcuffs and a brief, sharply indrawn breath from the pain. She passed through the cone of light, briefly revealing the mirth on her face.

"A mercy killing in exchange for the contents of my safe?"

It confused him that she didn't try to drive a harder bargain. She didn't scream at him, or mock, or accuse. All she gave him was this parchment humour. He had just sold her out, after everything she had done, after everything she was still offering him. Instead, she was preternaturally calm. It was an echo of Corvis, even, though Corvis had still tried to weasel out of things, but in hindsight, the way Corvis had accepted his end, perhaps he'd never truly believed it, either. It wasn't the kind of dying Aiden had ever witnessed. He'd seen guys beaten to a bloody pulp in some dirty back alley, he'd seen them weep and beg and piss themselves. He'd gotten in a punch and kick himself a few times, too. Better to be the one doing it than be on the ground.

This composure was something he didn't understand.

"It's not a bad deal," he said.

She was in her underwear under the bathrobe, smoothly muscled legs outlined by the flashlight now. He'd seen her fight only briefly — he hadn't had time to watch her when things had gone south after Corvis — but it was an easy bet to think she would've been a tough opponent even for all the Viceroys without the element of surprise. Perhaps if he had…

"9-6-2-6-8-4," she said, same toneless expression she'd had throughout their entire conversation. A tiny smile was in it, too, when she added, "It's a random number. Safer that way."

She laughed a little, "Turns out, I was looking the wrong way after all."

It took a long time for him to remember he had to act now, she had given him what he wanted, there was no reason to stick around. He got up and walked to the door. It wasn't even completely closed and he gave it a slight shove with the tip of his shoe.

He called out and when he felt Sand's attention on him, he dictated them the number and watched from the doorway as the Viceroys got up from where they sprawled around on the expensive leather furniture or raiding Sonya's liquor cabinet. Others seemed busy elsewhere in the house, painted white light revealed them, cajoling as they went.

Sand went to work on the safe. It was only faint relief to learn that Sonya had given him the right combination. She could just as easily have played him for a fool. Aiden would've done it, in her place.

He didn't stand around and watch them. He caught them pull out wads of cash, the biggest prize for them, but he also saw what appeared to be a pile of passports. There was even a _gold-bar._

Aiden walked back into the room, leaving the door. He picked up speed as he went, strength back in his limbs after he'd felt so numb for what felt like a long time. Not enough sleep, he guessed. He crouched down by Sonya's side and pulled the belt off her bathrobe and tried it in his hand. Silk, more than strong enough.

He threaded the belt around her throat, past her arms and back around the pillar. He wasn't sure if she just allowed herself be rearranged by him, or whether it was the beginning of a struggle. He wrapped the ends of the belt around his hands and hesitated. He expected her to say something. Some last words, a last revelation. Maybe an echo of what Corvis had told him. _This is how it ends, boy, pay attention, you'll get here eventually._

Sonya hit her head back, against the pillar, taking… No, _Raffaela _hit her head back, against the pillar, taking a deep breath, steeling herself.

Aiden pulled the belt tight. It wasn't much of a mercy, choking someone to death took time, but it was the best he had to offer without a gun and he wasn't going to ask Sand to return his.

The silk cut into his hand in the same way it cut into the flesh of her throat. The struggle began, beyond her control now, yanking on her arms, kicking out with her legs uselessly. She made low, gargling noises, all that managed to slip past her closed throat. Aiden settled one leg against the pillar for leverage and pulled harder.

Raffaela's body pulled against her bounds, desperately, gasping for air she wasn't getting, gagging and pounding her head against the pillar. Her twitching hand caught the edge of his head and he snapped away in shock, letting the silk slip for a second. He retaliated, anger and frustration fuelling him, until the muscles in his arms burned from the strain, all the way into his shoulder blades and up along the tendons of his neck. It settled as a dull throbbing behind his eyes.

Gradually, Raffaela's body lost its strength, the gargling died down, became slow, almost rhythmic, her body raked by hard spasms. He didn't let up, she was just unconscious, not dead yet, but the silence of it was still eerie. What silence there was, anyway, with the Viceroys still running loose in the house.

It seemed no one had called the cops. It seemed the burglar alarm hadn't been switched on, or else wasn't on it's own grid. So many things could've gone wrong tonight, but somehow they hadn't.

"_Would _you look at _that_?" Sand asked from the open door. "Enjoying yourself there?"

Aiden had to wet his lips before he trusted himself to speak, but it was barely a second. "Can you check her pulse?" he asked. "My arms are falling asleep."

"At your command," Sand mocked, walked over and crouched down by Raffaela's side. "She's well done."

Aiden managed to relax only by increment, more effort than it seemed to hold the tension. His fingers ached when blood suddenly returned into them. He massaged them, but barely paid attention.

"And now?" Aiden asked.

"Well," Sand wagged his head from side to side. "Looks like her part in the evening entertainment's gone all to hell, we'll settle with what we get. Found her gun stores, they're _massive. _Lot's of dead presidents, too. _Not _as much as we would've made if you hadn't fucked with us."

Aiden said nothing, but met Sand's gaze across Raffaela's limp body. "That's not what I mean," he said roughly.

Sand pretended to be surprised, "Oh, I get it. Yeah, we're done. Got yourself out of this one, but don't be so sure there'll be another time."

He gestured with both hands. "Keep your head down, white boy. You aren't gonna always having someone to trade."

Aiden stayed on the floor behind Raffaela, listened to the Viceroys as they raided the rest of the house. He handed over the gate remote when one of them asked for it and he was still there when the Viceroys left and finally the silence was actually real, even the one in his head.

After a time, the change in light caught and held his attention and he looked up. The screensaver had come on on Raffaela's laptop, abstract lines painting over the screen in random patterns, then erasing themselves.

Aiden pulled back to his feet, drawn to the computer before he realised what was happening. He touched the mouse and the screensaver quit, revealing what Raffaela had been working on. It seemed to be a programme for managing contacts. At first glance, he only spotted initials, maybe it was even coded, but it was still something he could use.

Behind him, Raffaela's dead eyes were watching, bloodshot and bulging from her red-and-blue face, disfigured almost beyond recognition. He didn't look at her. Not when he snapped the laptop closed and furled up its power cord, nor when he picked up the notebook from beside the desk or when he found the gun she'd tried to use earlier.

He found another safe in the bedroom, but if she used random numbers as combination, he had no chance to crack it. He couldn't have guessed it, anyway, he hadn't known her well enough for that. There was a box of jewellery in the bathroom, most of it looked genuine in the flashlight, he could pawn it for some additional cash. He didn't think he'd be getting paid what he still owed for Corvis.

He made a last round through the house, wiping down every surface he might have touched. He'd been careful and he didn't have a record, but he wasn't comfortable leaving anything to chance. Eventually, he _would _have a record, no need for this to come back in ten years time and ruin his day.

Other than making a mess and taking what guns and cash they had found, the Viceroys hadn't done much to the house. It looked like just any other burglary gone wrong, if you squinted. It lacked all the hallmarks of a gang hit. He supposed there was a reason for it, perhaps still hoping to keep things on the down low with the Club, or perhaps Sand wanted to avoid a future meeting with some of Raffaela's friends.

One last time, he stepped in front of Raffaela and this time he looked at her, met her empty gaze and her bloodshot expression, tongue lolling out at the edge of her open mouth. After a moment's pause, he picked up the belt he'd used to strangle her and took it with him. He'd burn it later, just to be sure.

Killing Sonya had been necessary. He couldn't have won this hand, otherwise. He wasn't even sure he _had _won, but at least he was still in one piece. It was just a question of expediency, but _this_ — all of it — it wasn't how he had pictured it.

_I'm sorry, _he thought, but there was no point in saying it aloud. No one who mattered was there to hear it.

He wandered down the driveway, found the gate open and the street just as empty as it had been when he'd arrived with the Viceroys.

* * *

Aiden sat at his regular table in the Dogtown. He had Sonya's laptop closed by his side, its power cord leading under the table and through the café to where it was plugged in behind the counter. There was not enough traffic back here to worry about someone tripping and Mal was okay with it.

Not everything he found in Sonya's files was useful, almost all of it was in some kind of code. He could make sense of some of it, understand the broad strokes of what she had been doing and, more importantly, for whom and at what price. Something he could work with, though, and a better starting point than nothing.

In the weeks following Sonya's death his life had been trying to return to it's daily grind. His mother still bugged him about possible college scholarships, Nicky's boyfriend still hated him, his friends still had no idea what good beer was. Leslie had moved out, it was a gradual breakup and not the first they'd had in the two years since he'd known her, but he had a feeling this one was going to last. Leslie had always professed she didn't care about his criminal involvement, but he supposed the reality of it wasn't nearly as romantic as her fantasy had been. He couldn't blame her for that, really.

On the table in front of him was the newspaper he had been reading over breakfast. His coffee cup had left damp circles along the edge of it, smudging the picture of a pitiful looking Sand in handcuffs being led away by uniformed cops. Even in the grainy picture, the wider scene was clear. The cops had moved in force and taken down an entire crew of Viceroys. According to the article, they had received an anonymous tip and caught the Viceroys in the act. It was a watertight case, apparently. Sand was going down for this one.

Aiden settled back in his seat, watched the parking lot outside the window, the people there. Maybe he should have waited a little longer before pulling anything on Sand, some of his Viceroy friends could make the link from Corvis to Sonya to Aiden, but none of it would matter if Aiden was careful enough, watched his back and didn't hesitate to shoot first. He'd need resources for that, allies or at least people outside the Wards, he needed _connections._

He flipped open the laptop, went through Sonya's contacts, memorised the number he'd come across earlier.

"Hey, Mal, watch my stuff, I gotta make a call," Aiden called before he left the Dogtown.

There was a pay-phone across the parking lot, a sorry looking thing, smeared with garish paint and dog-shit, functional only if you knew where to hit it beforehand.

It rang for a long time.

_"Yes?"_

"I'm calling because of a mutual acquaintance," Aiden said. "You've hired a fixer called Raffaela Benelli. Unfortunately, she won't be able to fulfil her end of the deal."

_"What? What happened?"_

"She had an accident," Aiden said, but he supposed the meaning of 'accident' was different in his circles. "And I know you've been left hanging. I'd be willing to take over. After all, your problem won't fix itself."

What the man _needed _wasn't difficult to provide. He was an engineer, looking to cash in on some of his work outside the company that paid his salary. All _he _needed was someone to talk him through it, make sure he didn't lose his nerve, maybe have a car ready and set up a meeting with potential buyers. Using Sonya's network, it wouldn't be hard to do, even if Aiden couldn't convince all of them to work with him. An easy job, all things considered. A good way to flex his muscles in the field.

_"No, it won't. Damn, okay. I agreed on the price with Ms. Benelli, I've already paid half of it…"_

"No problem, you just give me the rest upon completion."

Despite himself, despite what had happened, Aiden smiled a little. He felt like he was finally getting on the right track. Inwardly, he'd been laughing at Sonya's suggestion of becoming a fixer, it had seemed ridiculous at the time, but now? Now he thought it might not be a half bad idea.

"We should meet and discuss the details. Do you know the Dogtown Café?"

* * *

_End of _Dogtown_

* * *

**Referencing: **The gold-bar owes it's existence to the song Running Man by Al Stewart. It's probably vain or something, but I've managed to reference my own story (Nothing Left to Prove).

**Author's Note: **I've seen a lot (for a given amout of 'lot') mentions of how Aiden's hard to write. He isn't. Here's a tip: During the end-credits newsflash, Yolanda gives us this: "This is a very smart man looking to gain the upper hand in every situation." It's not _all, _but it's a good yardstick when determining his actions and reactions. (even if Yolanda really shouldn't have any idea what she's talking about, she's been face to face with him for barely three minutes.)

As for Dogtown, Aiden's mental state is all over the place. That's intentional. He doesn't have it all sorted out yet, after all.

* * *

_**Revised on 31/May/2015, 24/Feb/2016 and 21/Nov/2016**_


	11. Quaint Old World: The Good Life

**Author's Note: **I've completely forgotten I've actually finished this one… You might as well have it. Enjoy.

Btw, I don't actually _know _why my stories sometimes switch between present and past tense. Some scenes just demand to be written a certain way. It switches halfway through the story for no reason I can consciously determine. But it _needs _to be this way, otherwise it just doesn't sound right.

* * *

[this takes place in 2038, about a year after the events of Quaint Old World]

**_Quaint Old World: The Good Life**

* * *

It isn't the first time he's stared down the barrel of a gun. He's seen the moment preceding it, known it would happen maybe even before Ellis has made the decision himself. By chance, rather than skill or experience, Ellis stands too far away for him to intervene before he can raise the gun. The wide bulk of an old conference table is between them. Too many decades ago to think, Aiden might have attempted to act. He could have leapt that table and kicked the gun from Ellis' fingers before it became a true threat. But even at the height of his training, it would have been a risky move.

Now, the mere thought of it leaves bitter-tasting amusement on his tongue as he contemplates the embarrassment of trying such a thing. He leans back instead and the rickety office chair creaks with the move, sends uncomfortable echoes through the large basement room and makes the assorted members of DedSec Underground shuffle in place, agitation thick in the air.

The gun isn't steady in Ellis' hand, he's shivering ever so slightly and his whole body seems ready to snap. You can never outmanoeuvre a bullet, it doesn't have the necessary pressure points, only the gunman does.

From his seat down the length of the table, very quietly, Jackson says, "Ellis, don't. I asked him to come."

Ellis glances at Jackson, but doesn't dare take his eyes off Aiden, who's looking back at him calmly, an image of boredom and it sets Ellis' teeth on edge even more. It's Jackson he speaks to when Ellis says, "Who the fuck is he? I told you not to bring any strangers! It's too dangerous."

"He wrote the Perception app," Jackson said. Aiden keeps his gaze locked on Ellis, on the gleaming black gun and the way Ellis' expression is oscillating between fear and determination.

Technically, Aiden wrote a very buggy alpha build of Perception. Enough to trick some of ctOS' low-key features, altering the search pattern of their cameras and thus leaving blind spots to squeeze through. The app's current iteration, with its far more advanced features was T-Bone's work. Hastily and brilliantly put together in a corner of the homeless shelter he inhabited.

But Ellis doesn't know that and he won't. Aiden senses the surprise washing through the audience, ever so slightly altering the moment. Ellis is their leader, but not by merit of charisma or qualification. He is the leader because no one else has stepped up to the plate, because he's the only one with the bravado to pull a gun and hold it to a man's face.

Jackson hesitates, Aiden feels the questioning gaze, but he prefers not to look back. He's seen the way Ellis is getting more nervous with every second that passes. By now, he must have realised just how heavy a loaded gun can become on the end of an outstretched arm.

Jackson reaches a decision, but he isn't sure of it, doesn't know if Aiden approves or if it'd help. He says it anyway, "He's Aiden Pearce. He can help."

There is another silence after this, heavier than the first. Ellis seems shellshocked for no more than a second, than grates out a laugh. It isn't a very good one, it doesn't mask his insecurity at all.

"Pearce is an urban myth. He was never real."

"He's my uncle," Jackson says as if it constitutes some kind of valid argument. It's touching to hear it, because Jackson really believes it, really believes in some version of his uncle, Aiden has never quite figured out. Why _is _he here? Why has he chased down T-Bone and risked to tear the man's carefully constructed cover into tiny pieces. All of it, only so he can give it to these _children _playing at being revolutionaries?

Ellis waves the gun around to emphasis his words. In another time, it would have been an opening to use, but here and now, it's just aggravating to watch.

"Is that it?" Ellis demands of Aiden. "Can you _help us_?" Scorn is thick in his tone. He knows he's slipping, he's pulled the gun and now he's left without a script. He doesn't know how to put it away without seeming weak. It's never a good place for someone to be, they snap too easily.

Aiden shifts a little, just enough, the beginning of a movement quickly aborted. Ellis takes a step closer to the table.

It's easy to find that icy calm again, too easy perhaps after so many years, but it's there and Aiden can tell Ellis doesn't like the look of it. Aiden says, "What are you planning?"

"Like I'd tell you! Jacks could have sold us out! For all I know you're working for Blume!"

"You know who I am, Jacks told you," Aiden points out reasonably. He puts his chin forward, indicates the crates full of guns at the back of the room. There may be more he hasn't seen. "Let's see what we have," Aiden continues. "You've amassed guns and you've got Perception. For the first time in over twenty years, you can move freely through the city. Not just Chicago, but anywhere they use ctOS. You're going to recruit and then you're going to wage the war DedSec's always promised and never delivered. And you think you can actually pull it off."

He pauses, arches a condescending brow at the young man. "How am I doing so far?"

"That's not all!" Ellis announces, clearly trying to convince himself and his people rather than the sneering old man he's threatening with a gun.

Aiden leans forward, puts a hand on the table in front of him, shoves himself a little further back, getting some small distance between himself and the table. "You'd better hope that's not all, because you don't get it. Because, I don't know what games you're playing in your free time, but this isn't going to be won with a few guns. It's not the middle ages. You can't lay siege to Blume with a bunch of heretics. They'll crush you and then they'll spin a few good headlines. One assault, even if it's successful, which I doubt, won't mean _shit_. Blume's a vast multi-national with fingers in every government in the world. Do you think _any _decision is made that's not approved by Blume? Just two years ago they send us to war, remember?"

Wide-eyed now, Ellis passes the gun briefly to his left hand, wipes the right on his shirt. "That's China!" he says. "China invaded Africa and we're _helping_ them."

Aiden doesn't laugh, it's too sad to. "And look at you, buying right into the propaganda. Blume wants the resources and that's what Blume'll get."

"I'm not!" Ellis snaps. "It's going to work! Blume's got a headquarters here! We'll get in, and we'll connect to their network and then we can shut it all down!"

This time, Aiden _does _laugh. It sounds ugly and grating even for him, but it does the job, it brings Ellis all the way around the table. He plants himself right in front of Aiden, presses the gun to his forehead so hard he nearly manages to cover the trembling of his hand.

"Ellis," Jackson calls. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"He's talking bullshit!" Ellis snaps, looks up and past Aiden's shoulder at Jackson. "What does he know anyway! It's a good…"

… _plan. _He was going to say 'plan' and there are not enough alternate universes to make it true. At any rate, Aiden has him where he needs him and there's no point in waiting any longer, no sure way to know the moment will last at all.

No sure way to know it'll _work, _either, but part of him is morbidly curious if that damn bullet with his name on will ever come to collect at all. Aiden moves and he remembers how to do it, how to snatch one arm up and wrap fingers around the gun, how to _hold _and _twist _and _turn _until Ellis loses the grip on the gun with a pained yelp. Aiden springs from the chair with a speed he knows he'll regret later. He steps into Ellis' leg, makes him stagger and topple even as Aiden brings his other hand up Ellis' neck to grab the back of his head.

Ellis remembers how to struggle, but Aiden holds on, searing muscles and aching joints through a moment when he's not sure his body will last. It forces a snarl past his lips, and nothing else. Ellis uses the moment to kick out ineffectively and then Aiden slams him down on the table, face first, not hard enough to do any true damage, but enough to leave blood running from his nose and pool on the table.

Aiden pulls him back by the neck, stares him down and Ellis only tries to twitch away. He _could_ get away, break the hold. Aiden knows it, but Ellis can't see it. He has the strength to, but not the willpower.

"You know what else I know?" Aiden asks him. It's barely a whisper, but Ellis is close enough. "If _I _can do this, what do you think Blume Corporate Police is going to do with you?"

He gives Ellis a shove, but he's seen the anger in the younger man's face, the wounded pride and the dumb animal instinct it brought to the fore. Ellis will try him again, but he doesn't know how to do it, his eyes give him away and when he lunges for the gun again, Aiden's faster and he's done playing, done _arguing. _

He twists Ellis arm before it can get to the weapon and slams the hand down flat on the table. He picks up the gun, spins it easily in his hand before he can think about how stiff his fingers are, puts the muzzle to Ellis' hand.

Ellis whimpers, trying to pull away and although pain shoots up Aiden's arm, he shows nothing of it, doesn't loosen his grip, doesn't even flinch.

He pulls the trigger.

The gun clicks emptily and Ellis shrieks and then goes limp in his grip as the tension breaks all at once, half toppling over the table before he can catch himself with his free hand. He looks up at Aiden, lips quivering and eyes wide. There is something he wants to say, but no words come.

Aiden eases up on his hold, pulls the gun's magazine from his sleeve and slams it on the table. He steps away after that, gets clear in case Ellis has the guts to come at him again, but it'll be another minute until Ellis has found his bearing. For now, he's leaning on the table, breathing like he's ran a marathon, fingers still spread as if Aiden's still holding him down.

Through it all, it turns out, Jackson hasn't moved at all and his expression doesn't seem to have changed either. His gaze flickers between Aiden and Ellis, then settles on his uncle. He's only here for Jacks, only for him, _everything _only ever for him. Jackson has enough sense to keep himself on the outside of DedSec Underground's inane schemes. But Jackson _wants _this to be true, it's all there is to it.

And it's not enough.

Aiden says, "I'm sorry, Jacks. I can't fix it. Not this time."

* * *

Ellis' revolutionary zeal dogs him through the days.

But the doors are all closed. There is room only for minor things, smoke and mirrors in place of real magic. Enough to keep him safe in the world, enough to hide himself from ctOS. Him and T-Bone and Jackson and all the others he's met through the years who meant anything to him at all.

* * *

He tracks T-Bone to the new homeless shelter he's fled to.

"How do you keep _finding_ me?" T-Bone asks exasperated and grips Aiden's arm, drags him with him before Aiden even has a chance to answer.

"That's the first time I've been crowded into a toilet stall," Aiden says, resting a boot up on the toilet bowl so he can stand halfway comfortably.

T-Bone grimaces, "Makes two of us, buddy. Can't trust Perception, they've upgraded surveillance three weeks ago and it's the only remotely secure place. Legislation still doesn't want any camera in the shit house. Just a question of time, if you ask me. What do you want?"

Aiden is silent. There is no ctOS in here with them, but it's far from private. He can hear the other men milling around outside. "I need your help," he says finally.

"Well, that's good to know," T-Bone mutters. "Because I need yours. I ain't feeling safe here, or anywhere. I'm sure they're onto me… Damn, listen to me, I sound like Frewer. But the point stands, I need an out, a real one, this time."

"I have an idea."

T-Bone grins, quick and unrelenting. "Don't you ever. What's your deal?"

"Just a message I have to send."

T-Bone narrows his eyes. "I got a feeling I'm not going to like it."

* * *

It was a dismal day. It had rained throughout the night, but although it had let up by sunrise, the gravel paths of the graveyard had turned to muddy tracks through sodden marshland. A few wayward rays of sunlight were breaking through an otherwise perfect cloud cover, painting the glistening gravestones and lending the moment what gravitas it could.

A motley group of people stood around a new grave. They were standing a little too far apart, like people do who do not actually know each other well, who had come out of obligation, not the love and the loss normally associated with funerals.

A man in a shabby black suit under his shabby black coat stood a little apart form the others, speaking his eulogy in low, monotonous tones.

_"… I cannot say I knew him well…"_

On a slope, a little away from the new grave and it's peculiar mourners, was a stone bench. On it was a man, outlined against the bleached-pale sky. He had leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and closer inspection would reveal he wasn't looking at the funeral, but at the phone in his hand. An even closer look would reveal it to be an old phone, by several decades. They used to call them _smartphones, _but it was no longer an apt description in any shape or form. But the man was old, too.

Another man came striding up the wet path, walking in long, measured steps. Not young, either, by any stretch of the imagination, but his coat collar was up against the rain and the wind, his hands tucked away in his pockets. There was not enough visible to identify him at a distance, by human eyes alone and for some reason, the ever present surveillance cameras in the area altered their movement pattern and turned a curious circle around the two men, never quite recording their faces for automatic identification.

"Would you listen to that?" the man with the phone said. "Eric and I, we've been talking for _hours. _Drinking, too, playing poker. I thought we were friends."

Aiden seemed amused. "He thought you were a welder, T-Bone."

"Well," T-Bone said. He took his eyes off the phone and looked to the side. "Now he thinks I'm dead."

Aiden remained standing for a long moment, he let his gaze travel around the graveyard, watching the cameras on their tall poles all around. Eventually, he shook back into motion, took the last two steps to the bench and sat down.

"In a few hours, you'll be out of the country," Aiden said. "And Blume will receive the hints they need to find your grave. It's all arranged. It's time you do your part."

T-Bone sighed, stared back into his phone before he gave up the act and leaned back, stared at Aiden on the other end of the bench. "About that… I've been thinking and, Aiden, I don't know."

Turning his head, Aiden fixed him with narrowed eyes. "What's the problem?"

"They'll catch you, man," T-Bone raised his voice, just a little, enough to make his irritation clear. A gust of wind picked up above them, shook the old trees and seemed to scatter the mourners down the hill. The service done, they wandered off in their separate directions. No one lingered even a second.

"They'll put you behind bars or in the ground. I'm not helping you commit suicide."

"And this is better?" Aiden asked, frosty calm in his voice, unmoving but for the wind tucking on his collar. "I tried running and I tried hiding and I'm tired of both. Lately, I'm thinking _let them come_." He paused for a moment. "Let them lose a little sleep over it. Let them doubt."

T-Bone watched him, the personification of skepticism. "Can't say I agree. I get the sentiment, man, but… well, ain't no point if you aren't around to watch it go down."

"I _can_ do this alone," Aiden offered. "Not as well or as easily, but if you really want no part..."

T-Bone groaned, put his head back and stared at the colourless sky. "Fuck it, of course I'll help."

He squared his shoulders and got to his feet, stared down at Aiden, "If that's what you want, I won't ditch you. Been too long for that. I still think it's pretty dumb, but it's your choice."

He grinned a little, "Let's give them a show."

* * *

01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000

01101101 01100001 01110011 01101011

00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000

01100111 01101111 01101001 01101110

01100111 00100000 01110101 01110000

The press called it the Glitch.

For exactly ten seconds, all ctOS screens in Chicago — and _only_ in Chicago — had flashed a message and then returned to normal as if nothing had happened. Most people had seen it, there were barely any screens left _not _networked in some way to ctOS. In the midst of the wildest speculations Blume was running damage control, but they were fighting the tide.

ctOS — not compromised, not hacked in decades, notoriously without exploits — _ctOS _had apparently just slipped their control and after the ten seconds had passed a certain sense of doubt lingered in those circles of society still perceptive enough to tell a true breach from a viral marketing stunt.

It was obvious, if you knew where to look, just how petrified Blume's PR personnel was, how frantic police and Corporate Police became in the Glitch's aftermath.

_The mask is going up. _

* * *

_End of _Quaint Old World: The Good Life_

* * *

**_References:_ **'The Good Life' by Weezer plays on the radio in the game and is half the reason this particular installment even exists.

'The mask is going up' is used as code by Aiden in the novel "Dark Clouds". That binary code probably should have been a QR code to keep with game aesthetics, but this site doesn't allow such things. The QR code is my profile picture, however.


	12. Surplus Killing

**Note: **If playing fast and loose with in-game hacks bothers you, hang up now. If 5000+ words detailing Aiden's limitless badassness disagrees with your world view, hang up now.

Foxes, like most predators, engage in _'surplus killing'_, where they kill more prey than they actually need, simply because it's available. Or for the fun of it.

* * *

[summary: aiden's enemies decide to set a trap for him. aiden decides to take it on.]

[this takes place in late 2014 after bad blood, but before dark clouds]

**_Surplus Killing**

* * *

Normally, he wouldn't have come. Or at least, he'd come with backup and a safety net. But this was not normal, he was going to set an example. Of course, he had always known the prize on his head would draw bounty hunters and fixers from all over the country. They came and he picked them off, one by one. Sometimes he got to them so early, they never saw him coming. Or he made sure they never even saw him at all, nor any traces of him anywhere. Others turned out to be skilled enough to bring themselves face to face with him, or at least scope to head. It didn't much matter, because it always ended the same way.

This was different, it was _bigger. _And he was growing a little tired of the game and his own constant paranoia it inspired. He _was _ahead of them, but it cost him, time and energy and the longer it went on, the more likely he became to slip up, make one tiny, but crucial mistake. So this was a gift he wasn't going to waste. The fixers would learn a little lesson, hopefully it would be good enough to keep them off his back for a while, do enough damage to their confidence so they thought twice before taking him on.

It was simple mathematics. What they stood to lose had to outweigh what they stood to gain. Even a particularly stupid fixer would eventually learn not to play with fire.

Which brought him here, to a Club-owned warehouse down in Brandon Docks. It had been stripped days before in preparation, emptied of all valuables which might have been stored there. They even had attempted to take it out of the ctOS network, though it had taken only a little effort to reconnect things. Just because he planned on walking into their trap didn't mean he was going to sink himself to his neck in it.

There was just one last conundrum he couldn't solve. He had known something was brewing, but it was Jordi who had delivered the details and pointed him in the right direction. And Jordi wasn't trustworthy anymore_._ The only reason he could think of why Jordi would help him — and help at no charge — was because he hoped to cash in himself. A second trap could be in place, something he hadn't been able to spot, because Jordi, of all the fixers in Chicago, knew how he worked. Jordi could get to him. Didn't mean Jordi could take him down, just meant things would turn into an ugly mess.

So, was this Jordi's trap? Was he using the other fixers as cover for his own operation, or was it Jordi's way of apologising for screwing him over against Damien? Jordi tended to be unpredictable, but then, entirely predictable in his unpredictability. It just didn't seem like his style. Jordi was a hands-on type of guy, not one for convoluted plots and setups weeks in the making.

It _could _be exactly what it appeared to be: A bunch of fixers after the big money, banding together for whatever strength they hoped there was in numbers.

Technically, it wasn't too late to back out, because even if he hadn't missed anything, if this really was what it seemed to be, it could still be fatal. The fixers _could _have the numbers and the marksmanship and sheer, dumb luck on their side. He wasn't bulletproof. There was no guarantee he was better than them.

Sitting outside the warehouse in a stolen car, eyes cast down to his phone, awaiting the results as it scanned the surrounding area, the thought crossed his mind only briefly. He had not chosen the battlefield, but he was certain he knew it better, knew it's flaws and corners. It was going to be his show. If he wasn't good enough to be last man standing, the fixers deserved to get to him.

He got out of the car and slung the biometric rifle over his shoulder. No way he could hide a weapon this size, but there was a time and a place for subtlety and it was neither here nor tonight.

The fixers had invested some time into constructing the scenario to bring him here. He had taken care to make the vigilante's appearance be never quite according to schedule, never quite as predictable as his enemies might like, but this would have been difficult to ignore. In all probability, he really would have walked into that trap and from what he had seen, he wouldn't have survived it.

The criminal world had been shaken up badly, twice in quick succession. First, with Iraq's death the Black Viceroys had been thrown in disarray, sparking countless small turf wars among Iraq's lieutenants, fighting over who was going to control which part of Iraq's empire. The Viceroys had always been the most powerful gang in the Wards, even in Aiden's youth, and they had only grown since. But Iraq had been a stablising factor, without him, all bets were off.

Quinn's death had gone more smoothly, at least on the surface. His son, Niall, had slipped into Lucky's shoes and the transfer had gone without much of a hitch. Paying attention, listening to T-Bone and his contact at Chicago PD, or just _walking down the street _on some days told a slightly different story. The Club was struggling to keep it together with Lucky Quinn's far-reaching influence suddenly gone. They were exposed, to rivals and the law in equal measure.

And into this atmosphere, the fixers had strewn their rumours to draw Aiden out. The underworld leaders, the rumour said, all of them, would come together under a truce and _negotiate _how Chicago would be shared between them, restoring the mob-owned peace it had held before. The city was big enough for all of them, after all, and tearing each other apart was just ruining everybody's business.

No way in hell would Aiden have risked missing it.

The streets were deserted in all directions, not uncommon for Brandon Docks, but he suspected something more was at play this time. The warehouse had stood empty for a few months, the parking lot and loading areas left to be overgrown. A handful of shipping containers were haphazardly placed around, rusting away in the changing weather. Trash and other debris littered the place. The homeless preferred to stay closer to populated areas, but they'd take everything that offered shelter in winter. He saw none of those, no sign of the amassed force of fixers, either.

He stopped at the gate, it hung askew, but had clearly recently been moved. His phone hummed, informed him the scan had finally finished and he pulled it out, watching as it filled a 3D map of the place with red dots, enemies, or at least people. Profiler supplied names for some of them, it returned a handful of error messages, but the list of professions matched his expectation. Mercenaries, former soldiers, former police, private security contractors, most of them with records of one violent crime or other.

He was about to put the phone away, but as an afterthought, he switched off the scrambler. Blume — he was fairly sure it was Blume, with or without Club support — was paying good money for this show, they might as well enjoy it unpixelated. Just this once, when it wasn't in their interest to sent all of Chicago PD after him once the system identified him.

The inside of the warehouse was mostly empty, a broad walkway running its circumference about one and a half story above, housing offices or common rooms or storage for tools. He looked up as he walked inside, scanned the walkway for what he already knew was there: seven snipers, but all of them well out of sight to the naked eye.

At the centre of the hall, lit from above by strong lamps, were two crescent tables, set up like some political summit meeting, but both table and chairs were bare wood, set-dressing to fool only a casual onlooker. He wondered how long the fixers expected him to believe the scam.

He was supposed to reach the table, he decided. He should stop there, regard it and conclude he'd been played.

He strode through the empty hall, one hand hooked around the strap of the BAR, the other in his pocket, wrapped loosely around his phone. He knew it's contour by touch alone, good enough to know where he'd put all the important buttons. His boots made low sounds on the rough floor, crunching the dirt there as he advanced on the table. Four cameras tracked his movement, unblinking eyes on him, recording it all.

He stopped, turned on his heels to survey the empty table. Above him, something metallic scraped and hissed, the old walkway complaining under shifting weight. In a corner, something came loose and fell to the ground. He played along, he could afford to. Turned his head toward the noise, caught movement at the edge of his vision and finally looked up to meet a sniper's gaze past where he leaned behind the scope.

The laser stung his eyes briefly, before it chittered down to his chest and was joined by three others. Four on his back, then. Not the brightest thing to do, considering he was wearing a bulletproof vest, something they _could _have anticipated. He wasn't a great fan of laser sights, either, but he supposed they served an additional purpose. It wasn't _enough _just to kill him and take the money for it, no, they needed this moment. They needed him to _know. _

He switched on the timer on his phone, then raised both hands over his head. He took a small step away from the table, turned in a slow circle to map them all. Ah, yes, there were the others. If he had miscalculated the time, this could be ugly. Even if the vest stopped the bullets — fairly good range for snipers, they might do some damage — he could end up with cracked or even broken ribs, no fighting condition for the two dozen guys hiding as backup outside.

He looked away from the sniper he was facing, found one of the cameras instead and gave the audience on the other end a hard look.

The counter on his phone reached zero, sent its signal and detonated the explosives he had spent the better part of a night carefully putting into place. They took out the support beams of the walkway and the entire thing came down in screaming metal, burning plastics and tearing wallboard. Somewhere above, windows shattered and added their glittering shards to pieces of broken furniture and scraps of singed paper.

Aiden thought of himself as nothing more than a talented amateur when it came to explosives. He had to do a lot of preparation to make sure his IEDs didn't just take the entire warehouse down. He had to weasel his way into the city archive, too, because floor-plans for the place weren't stored digitally. He'd been careful, made sure none of the bombs were too close to anything supporting the hall itself _and _the devices had to be small enough that they didn't attract the attention of the fixers when they set up their own shit.

It seemed to have worked out exactly according to plan.

The shockwave rolled against him, carrying heat and choking dust, it picked up his coattails and whipped them around him. He dropped his hands, pulled his scarf over his mouth and nose and jump-started. Pulling the BAR from his shoulder and the phone from his pocket, stealing a quick look while he found cover behind still churning debris.

The men outside were already on the move, circling the warehouse to cover all exits, make sure he stayed put, hoping to get at him from all directions.

The blast from the IEDs had knocked out most of the cameras, only one was still responsive, though hanging by its cables. It was an unwelcome but not unexpected development, he'd have preferred a better look outside, but he was far from blind. A quick scan revealed several cellphones in his immediate vicinity, he couldn't pinpoint them exactly while they were moving, but more than enough to get some idea of where they were, updating the map.

While he was at it, he uploaded a virus to the phones, not bothering with those with any kind of security. He sent a signal to a randomly selected quarter of the phones so they'd overheat, hopefully in somebody's pocket. Results of this particular trick varied depending on brand and age of the phone and the health of its battery. If they were very unlucky, the phones exploded.

Lastly, he tapped into their communication. Or rather, he tried to. He wasted a precious moment staring at the error message while the dust around him slowly began to settle.

There was no sign of the snipers, probably crushed and buried under bent metal and broken wood. If one of them had survived, he'd soon wish he hadn't, it would be a while before help came to find them.

So, his would-be killers had forgone communication. It explained why he hadn't picked up anything before walking into the warehouse, but he had assumed they were simply holding to radio silence before the trap was sprung, but apparently they'd paid attention to how previous encounters with him went. Not bad, he thought vaguely, but dropped the phone into his pocket again and moved away from the debris.

He followed the outline of the hall until he found a gap to squeeze through and navigate his way to a door, easily scaling over or slipping past what blocked his path until he found one of the doors. It was only partially covered up, easy to clear out. The door opened outward, jammed perhaps but nothing a good tuck couldn't solve.

A group of fixers were coming for the door, scattered around outside to give him no clear shot. At least five, maybe more in case not all of them were carrying phones.

He pressed his back against the wall and waited.

Some enterprising fixer, if he had ctOS access for example, could know he was there and the wall wasn't thick enough to block concerted fire of a weapon with any kind of punch. They could kill him and he'd barely even know what hit him. It was a calculated risk, but then, his calculations tended to be good.

Someone tore open the door and the barrel of a gun preceded its owner as he edged inside carefully. The problem with riot gear and why Aiden preferred to cut down on armament, was it restricted vision and movement. He edged closer to the door, before the fixer came through and the man had no chance to spot him in time.

Aiden reached for the gun, closed a gloved hand around it and yanked the fixer inside, snapped the gun up and stepped into his knee. The fixer went down and one-handed, Aiden brought up the BAR, pushed it into his neck and fired downward, a salve going right through his torso, _inside _his bulletproof vest.

He dropped the man's deadweight, put both hands to the BAR and, firing, crossed to the other side of the door. On this side, more broken debris offered some additional cover. He heard some shouts outside and sent the overheat signal to the nearest phone. A moment later, someone shrieked.

Aiden crouched down and leaned out of cover, using the moment of confusion, picked his targets and fired in short, hard bursts, leaned into the recoil as it punched his shoulder and strained his arms. The shots hit two men in the head, tearing open a neck and sending a spray of blood down over him as he stumbled in mid-run. The other took the burst in the face, an efficient, if extreme way to circumvent Profiler.

A third took the bullets into his arm and down his leg as he tried to dive for cover. Not dead, but definitely out. Left the one with the hot phone, but Aiden couldn't spot him. It was time to move anyway, he had at least twenty more coming for him and they knew where he was now. Time to go somewhere else.

He dipped out into the backyard and ran past the dead — or dying — fixers and into the position he'd sprung them from.

"Shit!" the owner of a molten phone shouted, squatting behind a concrete boulder as he spotted Aiden coming for him. Aiden swerved to the side, reached for the man and ignored the fixer's left-handed attempt to raise a handgun. He gripped the edge of the man's helmet and threw his full weight into a hard wrench. The helmet wasn't a very good hold, too loose to break the man's neck but he certainly felt it, screamed and was toppled over and onto his back. Aiden stopped over him, shot him in the face, but didn't stay.

Lamps mounted on tall poles flooded the open yard with white spotlights, brightness broken by the murky darkness of a city. He could switch the lights off entirely, but he wasn't sure it'd be to his disadvantage. The fixers were outfitted for a war-zone, they could be equipped with night-sight goggles, prepared for just such a stunt. He liked to work in darkness, it wouldn't be a bad guess. No, leaving the lights on was the better move and as long as he made sure his own night vision wasn't ruined, he could still make it work for him.

"There he is!"

If the man had had any sense, he'd have taken aim and fired instead of yelling, because he was coming out of the shadows where Aiden hadn't been able to spot him. The scan hadn't picked him up, either, he wasn't carrying anything networked to ctOS.

With the warning, Aiden had time to drop down behind the boulder. Time, too, to bring his own rifle back around and fire. He hit the fixer's legs and he stumbled, Aiden kept at it. The man was dead before he stopped moving.

Two more fixer had taken cover while their comrade was being mowed down, calling to each other, but too quietly for Aiden to understand. He gauged the distance, too far to make it even if he took them by surprise, but he didn't have time to spare. Others were already circling around the warehouse to get at him from behind or the side, where the boulder would be useless.

Bullets hissed close over his head, reminding him to keep it down. Rather than be cornered, he sent the overload order to the remainder of the phones he'd hacked earlier.

"The hell?!" he heard, giving the sign and he dove out of cover, blind-firing because he didn't have the time and he only needed to cross the distance. He jumped the heavy barrel that served one of the fixers as cover, kicked him in the face and brought his rifle around before he even landed and released another burst in the vague direction of the second man. At this range, he could barely miss and the fleshy shattering of bone alongside a sharply cut-off scream told him he hadn't.

He counted off two explosions in the distance and several screams. That made about ten down, give or take a few.

There was a trick to it all, a rhythm for him, because there were so many things for him to remember and to plan and to time. An eye on the phone, one through the scope and at least two to cover his back, another to make sure where he was going, looking ahead and behind and all sides. Riding the cameras gave him an advantage, though it tended to take long, time he spared only when he thought he had it. It was always a running calculation of risk and reward, a constant re-evaluation of how far he could go and come out alive on the other side.

It was juggling with weapons, too, swapping between the assault rifle and the pistol and the baton if he ran out of ammo and time to reload, if he got close enough to an enemy — or the other way around, because he still had blind spots no matter how hard he tried to cover all angles. He had to know which hits he could take and which would take him out of the fight, decisions stacking up within seconds.

The fight crossed the open field and ctOS had miscounted the numbers much more dramatically than he had anticipated. Perhaps it wasn't by chance, perhaps these people knew his methods better than they should, or perhaps he just wasn't a well-kept secret anymore. He found himself hard-pressed, forced to retreat one step after another he didn't want to take, just so he could keep the fixers from flanking him.

He was still counting them off, seventeen down, then eighteen. Twenty-three, no, twenty-_four. _

Inside the warehouse, the dust had settled and it was dark. What lights there had been had died with the explosion. As he dove into that darkness, he thought he heard a whimper somewhere, some broken sniper still hoping for rescue. He had no time to check. A bullet grazed his arm, tore through the leather of his coat and ripped a sliver of flesh free, but then there was respite in the fire. He knew it was because they'd lost sight of him, had slowed their advance and swarmed the hall until a gunshot or just the spark on the muzzle of his pistol allowed them to find him again.

A low thud, off to the side, far too close and he knew it was a grenade and he was too close to get clear, if it was cooked or not. All he could do was throw himself away and down, as far as he could go and hope for the best. The blast threw him down, seared his back and the side of his head. It knocked the BAR from his hands and sent it flying off somewhere in the darkness.

"He's down!"

Aiden scrambled back to his feet, wondering if the grenade had knocked him out for a moment, because the fixers were already on him, open muzzles of shotguns about to blast right through his vest, perforate his unprotected limbs while he still struggled with the concept of balance. He wrapped his hand around the handle of the baton and brought it up, still retracted and punched the short length of metal into the nearest fixer's face, made a grip for the nearest gun with the other hand and shoved it aside, just enough to make the shot miss him, but close enough to feel the blast.

He ducked away under the shotgun after that, used the momentum to swing the baton, open it to its full length and brought it around on the back of another attacker while the group of them still struggled to turn around against their own inertia. He jumped aside, made another shotgun burst miss him by a handful of inches.

Coming up finally, behind a fixer, he got the baton square across his throat from behind, held him against as meat-shield while the steel of the baton choked him. It gave him a moment, enough to see one of the downed fixer, struggling ineffectively to get back up. His gun had fallen from his hands and he didn't seem to be going for it. Left one more and a few across the hall running toward them, unwilling to open fire while their comrades were tangling so closely with Aiden.

Aiden pulled the baton up and back and felt the fixer go limp in his hands. He let him slip away, shoved his coat back and pulled his pistol and shot from the hip upward, watched as the bullet cut through the last fixer's face from below, leaving a neat hole from the front and brain splattered behind.

He shoved the pistol back into its holster and took a running start, picked up the dropped shotgun from where it had fallen and slid over a piece of debris for whatever cover it offered. He slid further in its shadow and climbed a bent out of shape metal ladder leaning over a pile for height.

It was the optimum range for the shotgun, especially one loaded with slugs. It was clean, for a measure of _clean. _It took three shots to down them. One to the face, the other took two hits in the chest and the throat.

Aiden lowered the gun slowly. He'd made a mistake, of course, getting up so high, making himself an easy target and there it was, the price. Pebbles and dirt crunched under boots and Aiden turned to find another fixer advance on him, assault rifle ready. The man moved cautiously and it took a moment for Aiden to place his awkward stance, but he must be the one who had taken the baton to the back, he was lucky he could walk at all. He'd be lucky if he walked straight ever again, even if he survived.

"Alright you fucking bastard," the man growled, anger and something close to panic making his voice waver. "Drop the gun."

Aiden turned to face him fully. He lowered the shotgun, let it slip through his grip slowly until it fell to the metal, away through the gaps. Without taking his gaze off the fixer, he climbed down from his vantage point, bent down to pick up the baton.

"Hey!"

Aiden tilted his head, the only concession. With the baton in hand, he kept walking for the fixer with measured steps. He actually made the man retreat before he remembered he was holding a gun. "Stop right there!"

But he didn't stop until he stood right front of the fixer, muzzle of the rifle pointing straight at his face. He could have leaned into it, actually touched it if he'd wanted to. The fixer seemed somewhat confused, in pain and, even before that, realising just how much out of his depth he was. It took too long for him to pull the trigger, he shouldn't even have called out, what was he trying to do anyway? Take Aiden captive? Where would be the point? No one in this city wanted him on trial, he knew too many dirty secrets, no one could risk him spilling even one word.

The fixer came to a conclusion, his features hardened in the moment before he pulled the trigger.

Except, nothing happened.

The fixer had picked up the closest weapon, he would have checked it's ammo state, but paid no attention that he had gotten Aiden's biometric rifle. The one gun in the world that couldn't be turned against its owner.

Confusion washed over the fixer's face, closely followed by sheer panic. Aiden reached out to hold on to the rifle, a casual gesture, and brought up the baton, smashed its tip into the fixer's temple, knocking him out cold.

Another sound, right behind him and Aiden whirled around, twisted his BAR in his hand and let go of the baton to grip the rifle with both hands.

"What use is a weapon that won't fire?" another fixer asked across the barrel of a handgun. He looked a little worse for wear, but Aiden couldn't quite identify him like this. One he had taken down much earlier and either mistaken for dead or hadn't had the time to finish off.

The trick here was not to advertise his own actions, tip his enemy off to what he was going to do. The fixer didn't think the rifle in Aiden's hand was dangerous, but he must have enough knowledge and instinct to read the truth in Aiden's face.

"You know, you really are a tough motherfucker," the fixer continued. "And you're _batshit_. Taking you down is a fucking public service! I should get a medal. Just look at all of this!"

Aiden didn't. He kept his gaze glued to the fixer's gun, rather than the man's face, never meeting his eyes. He adjusted the angle of his gun a little, just to make sure he hit vulnerable tissue.

"You're sick, man! You know that, right? I will…"

Aiden shot, one harsh round, beating into the fixer's bulletproof vest and up, across his collar and throat and through the left half of his face. The blast threw the man back, tossed him through the debris and his gun fell from twitching fingers.

Aiden flexed his shoulders, took a few steps forward until he stood over the fixer. He was still alive, barely, one undamaged eye fixing on Aiden with some difficulty.

"If you want to lose a fight," Aiden said, put his rifle to the fixer's forehead. "Talk about it first."

He pulled the trigger and while the twitching stopped the wide-eyed disbelief remained on the dead fixer's face.

Aiden retrieved the baton, closed it and stored it away as he crossed back through the ruined warehouse to where the last camera was still swaying slightly from the wind cutting through the blown-out windows.

He glanced up at it, pulled his phone from his pocket and switched the scrambler back on.

"Show's over."

* * *

He had a few new stitches on his arm and they stung as the hot water of the shower ran over them. Not badly, by any stretch of the imagination, but enough to make themselves felt. His whole body was like that. Nothing unbearable, nothing that wouldn't heal_, _just scratches and bruises, minor cuts and minor burns. It was barely even pain, just an ache settled deep inside his bones threatening to hollow him out.

The buzzing of his phone cut into the revery of hot water and steam. Rather than respond — or curse because he hadn't switched it off — he just turned his face into the spray, let the water beat into his face until he felt the muscles there relax.

The phone kept buzzing. Someone _very_ persistent. He gave up, turned off the water and pushed his wet hair from his eyes, going through the very short list of people who even knew that number and all of them would know not to abuse it. Something important, then.

He picked up the phone from the edge of the sink, stopped briefly before he answered. Jordi? Not quite who he had expected.

"What?"

_"I won't ask how it went, because I really already know. Honestly, some days you are a pleasure to watch, kind of a turn on…" _

"Too much information, Jordi."

_"… and the Grid's all abuzz, too. It looks to me like you've really made your point. In fact, the consensus so far is, no one's going to take the contract. I mean, of course it's still on offer and I'm guessing it's just a question of time until the pot's sweetened some more. It's going to be some time until someone tries you again. You'll be bored to tears by how peaceful it's going to be, mark my words. Someone _will _take it eventually, though." _

Aiden padded through the room, trailing water, because the towel slung over his shoulder wasn't really making much of a difference.

"Including you?" he asked. He got a beer from the minibar and a few painkillers from the open packet on the table. There was no opener, so he squeezed the phone between shoulder and ear, opened the bottle against the edge of the table.

_"Jesus, Pearce, will you ever let me hear the end of it? It was a good job. If someone'd take you down, wouldn't you rather it be a friend?"_

"You're not inspiring confidence," Aiden pointed out, chewing down on a pill before he washed it them with a sip from the bottle.

_"Would it help if I told you I knew you'd get yourself out of it?" _

"You held a gun to my face, if you thought I'd get out of it, you wouldn't have done it," Aiden said, but he couldn't summon much passion. He dropped the towel into an armchair and let himself fall after it, sinking into the cushions.

_"Does 'water under the bridge' mean anything to you? No, wait. It's Aiden Pearce I'm talking to and that expression is a complete mystery to him. But can we get this straightened out?" _

"I'm in a good mood," he said. The motel stocked surprisingly good beer. "What do you even want?"

On the other end of the line, Jordi gave a mannered sigh. _"What happened, happened. I can't take it back and, let's face it, I wouldn't even if I could. It's a question of self-respect. But it's all worked out for the best in the end and I really do like the kind of mayhem you get up to when the mood strikes you. It's a talent! And I like talent. How about this? We consider each other even. I tipped you off about today, didn't I? Not to pad myself on the shoulder, but I _know _I saved your life." _

Aiden didn't answer immediately. "Not good enough," he said then. "How do I know you aren't looking to collect yourself?"

_"Oh, you don't. But look at me, eating humble pie just for you. If there's one thing you'll believe, how is this: It's more lucrative working with you than against you?" _

Aiden grinned, "That sounds more like the Jordi I know."

_"I just want to know where we stand. I think deserve that, after all the good times we've had? And the… one… slightly less good time." _

"Where we stand?" Aiden asked. "We stand where I don't go out of my way to put a bullet through your head and you don't give me a reason to change my mind about it. That's where we stand."

_"God, you're difficult." _

Some anger was working itself into Jordi's voice, patience slowly running low. _"Have it your way. See if I ever help you again."_

Aiden took another sip from the beer, still grinning a little.

"You aren't afraid of me. You need me for a job, don't you?"

Jordi had never been slow, he picked up on things quickly. True, he often chose to ignore it if he didn't care about it, but that was an entirely different dysfunction. This time, it took half a heartbeat longer than it should have and _that_ was just a little more satisfying than it should have been, too.

_"Finally," _Jordi huffed. _"Can we _finally _talk business again? Good. I was a little worried you'd never come around."_

* * *

_End of _Surplus Killing_

* * *

**References: **_"If you want to lose a fight, talk about it first."_Quellcrist Falconer in the Takeshi Kovacz novels by Richard K. Morgan (I've been waiting so long to quote Quell!)

**Author's Note on...**

**... Jordi: **If you've heard the audio logs in Bad Blood, you'll know that Aiden's sometimes given to angsting, bakes in his spare time and seems to regard Jordi as a pretty close approximation to a friend. I like to think the feeling's mutual. (Maybe they make cupcakes together on weekends.)

**... Aiden**: First close encounter with Aiden as POV character (Dogtown doesn't count) and he's an _experience_. He kept running away with the story and he's very hard to keep in line. (It's a thousand words more than I planned! Bloody hell...)

* * *

_**Revised **on 31/May/2015 and 01/June/2016_


	13. Nightcall No 1

**Author's Note: **Poppy fascinates me. Her character design is very unique, but her role is minor and we barely learn anything about her at all. I guess, at this point, that her story was cut content in some way. I'm holding out hope for her appearence in the sequel or a DLC.

For now, this is sole and exclusively my own interpretation of her character and her role in the game.

**Additional Note: **I have great plans for this segment, but I'm not sure I can actually pull it off. I'm going to try and write Poppy and Aiden into a relationship, but they never really talk face to face (only about business or other life-and-death matters) but they _really _talk only on the phone at night. Maybe you recognise the mood of these calls.

Some of their exchanges will only hint at backstory and will leave gaps. I don't want to infodump. Important bits should be clear (or become clear as the story unfolds.)

**Lastly, **it's no secret that I disdain almost all depictions of romantic love. It doesn't mean I don't acknowledge the feeling or that I reject all iterations of it. However, if you expect flowers and chocolate and dialogues going _I love you/I love you, too_, you'll be greatly disappointed. I try to depict complex relationships, in this as in everything else I write. I'll let you be the judge of how well I do.

* * *

[summary: two complicated people fine (and lose) each other in the dark]

[this takes place in spring 2015, after the main events of the game]

**_Nightcall #1**

* * *

"_Chances are you dialed this number by mistake. If so, hang up now. If you're trying to find me, you're not going to, so hang up now. There won't be a beep."_

"Hello? Well, you know me as Poppy. I'm only calling because I've never had a chance to thank you properly after what you did. You saved many lives that night, including mine and I owe you. I've seen you on the news, I'm sure you save so many, it barely registers anymore, though I guess something must keep you going, too. So, before I start rambling, let me say it again: Thank you. And if there's ever anything I can do in return, I'm sure you'll know how to find me.

I thought you should know I've decided to work for Chicago PD. I know the scene, more intimately than I'd like, but perhaps something good will come of it in the end. I know who to talk to, who to lean on. The girls will talk with me when they'll never speak to a police officer. Someone has to help them, it might as well be me. At least I know what it's like.

Perhaps it's also a way to make amends, I'm not sure. I did a lot wrong in my life, maybe I can make up for it somehow. These women — and there are children and boys and grown men, too — they need someone to watch out for them who really understands what they are going through. I don't think I'm their saviour in some way, just one person, doing her best. I think that's all anyone can ask, isn't it?

But I do call for another reason, too. I didn't have time to realise it before. I'm sure you've noticed I wasn't at my best when we met and things moved very quickly, but now, with time, I think I've managed to put all the pieces in the right place. I didn't recognise you in the Infinite 92 and during the auction, but the more I think about it, the more certain I am. You _were _at the Merlaut, two years ago, when Quinn was hacked.

It's possible you…"

_"Donna. I'm here."_

"You've been listening to me all this time?"

_"Making sure you check out. There was a trace on the call, your friends at CPD, no doubt. What do you mean, you remember me from the Merlaut?"_

"Two years ago. I was working with Iraq. He was hacking Quinn's network, looking for something he could use. It went badly. I never learned the details of what happened. There must have been a second hacker in the system at the same time and an alarm was triggered. Quinn put everythig he had on the trail and Iraq let me take the fall to make sure his involvement wasn't discovered. He pinned it on me and they sentenced me to… well, what you saw. Quinn wouldn't believe a word I said after Iraq was finished. I'm still not sure why they didn't kill me immediately. Some money to be made from a pretty face, I guess, while it was still pretty. Crispin would've taken care of that."

_"Only if he'd been very fast." _

"Because of the pocket knife? I never stood a chance, but I thought, well, maybe I can at least force him to kill me quickly. Don't think I don't know how lucky I am it never had to come to that."

_"There _was _a second hacker at the Merlaut. You knew Iraq well?" _

"Not that well. Well enough to trust him more than I should have, perhaps. Iraq had plans. _Big _plans. He wasn't just a mad dog, he had a brain in him. For a time, I thought maybe he could turn things around for the whole neighbourhood. I thought the entire gang-banger act was just to win respect. You can't change that place from the bottom, you'll have to do it when you're on top. I thought in the end, he'd break the cycle, make things better."

_"I doubt he was on the way to do that." _

"Yes, it doesn't look so good now, in hindsight. But he had the means, he could've been one of the good ones. But look at Rossi-Fremont. It's like ten years ago, like it was before Iraq. All the same cycle of violence and poverty and more violence."

_"Iraq put it outside the system. At least people are connected again." _

"But there's still no real hope. Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Where it's all going to go? ctOS is supposed to sort out those sorts of places, but it can't can it? Because it's only about people and people make mistakes, or they're greedy or stupid, or just too desperate to realise what's right in front of them. It doesn't really matter if it's Iraq or somebody else."

_"You want to make a difference." _

"I could probably say the same thing to you. But there's a large gap between _wanting to_ make a difference and really changing things for the better. I'm sure of what I do, but that's now, that's with the memories for Quinn's auction and my time at the Infinite 92 still fresh in my mind. What if, years down the line, I look back and Rossi-Fremont and all the other places that are _exactly like _Rossi-Fremont are still unchanged? I'll look back and I'll realise I changed nothing. I think that's what I'm heading for: Embitterment."

_"That's not a good way to think." _

"It's the realistic way to think. What keeps _you_ going?"

_"That's a hard question." _

"Yes."

_"It's also going to be a hard answer and you may not like it. The truth is complicated."_

"Isn't it always? I'm difficult to shock."

_"Another time, perhaps. Listen, there may be something you can help me with, if you were serious?" _

"I've been through too much to go back on my word. And I _really _have been through too much to be easily scared by anything. If you need my help, I'll be there, no holding back. It's the least I can do."

_"Even if I put you back in the line of fire?" _

"That's the point, isn't it?"

_"Well, yes. Your employers won't like it if you work with me." _

"Would you be surprised to learn CPD isn't all negative about the vigilante's presence on the streets? It's a mixed bag, of course, and the official line is something else again, but so far, you do more good than harm and enough of them realise that. It doesn't mean they wouldn't arrest you if they had the chance. And _are _a cop-killer, too. That doesn't go over well.

But, now that my life is my own again, I'll do with it what I like. If I decide to help you, it's none of their business. They don't need to know about everything I do. And I'm sure you have some tricks to help cover your tracks."

_"A few, perhaps. I'll get back to you."_

* * *

_End of _Nightcall #1_

* * *

**References**: 'Nightcall' like the song by Kavinsky that plays that the beginning of Drive.

**About that… **I _think _Aiden's phone doesn't actually take messages, but for the sake of this story, let's imagine it does. I'm sure fanfic authors have altered canon in worse ways than this. Also, let's also imagine Aiden made sure Poppy could contact him in some way.

* * *

_**Revised** on 05/June/2015 and 01/June/2016_


	14. Nightcall: Indigo State

**Note/Warning:** Nothing much happens in this part. And that's not a cliffhanger at the end, either. I'm so sorry.

* * *

[summary: aiden enlists poppy's help with a job]

[takes place in spring 2015]

**_Nightcall: Indigo State**

* * *

_"You called. Something wrong?"_

"That depends. I heard a strange rumour. It said Nicholas Crispin is back in Chicago. I'm surprised his death isn't common knowledge."

_"There was a lot of chaos, before and after the cops raided the auction. I _'heard' _Crispin has gone into hiding, keeping his head down. Many of the buyers and sellers are doing it. Small fry, mostly." _

"You've been spreading the rumours! Why would you keep him alive?"

_"I can use him." _

* * *

**To: **Donna Dean

**From:** [unknown]

**Message:** _need help, picking you up, 10:30 tonight, wear something nice._

* * *

The thought that _Aiden Pearce _of all people was just asking her out on a date with characteristic aplomb amused her throughout the evening, picking out a dress and painting her face. It made her smile, even though she knew well enough it wasn't anything like that.

Punctual to the second, a dark magnate drew to a halt across the street, parked in the gap of darkness between two street lights and Donna stalked over on too high heels, little clicking noises on the rough concrete.

She settled in the backseat of the magnate. She gave Pearce a wan smile from the side and said, "Something nice? Why are we playing dress-up?"

"Because we're going to do this the old-fashioned way," Pearce said, himself lodged on the other side, face hidden in the shadow of a fedora and the upturned collar of his dark coat. "Or you are, I'm just backup."

The car picked up speed right from the start, shooting down the road aggressively. She didn't know who the driver was, but if Pearce trusted him, she had no issues with him.

"Clue me in?" she asked.

"We're going to a club called Indigo State. It used to be mob-owned, but since Lucky's death the Club's struggling to keep all their assets under control. Indigo State _seems _to be under independent ownership, but I couldn't trace where the money was coming from, or where it goes. The manager, guy called Haugh, he's a paranoid technophobe."

"Can't really blame him," she mused.

"His computers aren't networked to ctOS and they don't have any wifi capabilities. Haugh's strict about his staff's phones, doesn't want them around. Long story short, I can't get in without getting in."

"You think there's something fishy going on?"

"No, I _know _there's something fishy going on. The nightclub is a front, or possibly a lucrative side-investment. Half the criminal underworld of the Midwest frequents the place, yet CPD doesn't even keep it under observation."

Chicago PD was her employer. Working with Pearce at all put whatever future she was building there in jeopardy, but it didn't feel like that. To her, as well as many she spoke to, Pearce and the law were on the same side, except _he _didn't have to respect people and property that didn't need to be respected. But then, all of that could just as easily be a nice fairy tale. The truth was, neither she nor anyone else, really knew what he was about.

"You think they've been bought off?" she asked.

"Maybe, but I barely got wind of all of this," he shrugged slightly. "It's possible CPD really doesn't even know. They depend on ctOS just as much as everyone else and Indigo does a good job at keeping itself under wraps."

"What _do_ you know?"

"Not enough, I don't even know what's in that basement. Could be a brothel, could be gambling, could be drugs or guns or secrets. It could even be something legit, but I find that hard to believe."

She looked away from him and outside. They were dipping into Mad Mile, lights flashing past in all colours, blinding her momentarily, pulling her along with the buzz.

"Why do you need me?" she asked.

"Two reasons. One, I know your skill-set, you can do this. Two, I got an exit strategy just for you."

She looked back at him when she heard him move. He pulled a small bundle from his side and handed it to her.

She put it on her lap and folded it open. Fine tools and tiny devises resting on dark cloth like diamonds. Bugs, clearly nothing you'd get on the open market judging by their size and she could only guess at their sophistication.

"You have to plant at least one of them close enough to one of the Indigo's computers," Pearce explained. "Not the ones on the ground floor, they are on a separate network, nothing important on those. You'll have to get upstairs to the office. Their range is good, if you drop them behind a computer, they'll work. Ideally, you get them inside the case. One will do, more for contingency. It'll give me wifi access to the network."

She folded the bundle up again carefully. It was small enough to fit into her bag without bulging it out too much.

"And the exit strategy?"

"Since Haugh's so paranoid, it's unlikely you won't be noticed. If you are, keep calm and get them to call me."

Faint amusement came into his voice, "Or rather, let them call Crispin."

"It's been months since the Crispin rumour started," she said. "You've been planning this for so long?"

The amusement still lingered in his voice. Part of her wished she could see more of his face to be certain of it.

He said, "Not this specifically. But it's a name the right kind of people will recognise. At the same time, his death is surrounded by too much confusion to be sure it really happened. No one left who could clear things up, at least as long as I keep it on the down-low."

He seemed to consider for a moment, then added, "Do you think people will recognise you?"

"Possible, I don't know," she shook her head. "But I can play the part, no problem."

She leaned back in her seat, took a long look at him in the dark car. "Is there a reason why you don't sneak in yourself?"

"I ran background checks on Haugh's staff, too many who know my face, too risky and I don't want to tip Haugh off that his security was breached at all. I show up there, it'll just rock the boat unnecessarily."

He pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped something on it. She watched his fingers move, momentarily mesmerised at the speed. Her own phone buzzed in her bag and she startled.

Without looking at her, he said, "I've uploaded floor-plans to your phone, I've updated the original plans with what I could find out about the place, but it's probably not a 100% accurate, but it should give you an idea where to go."

She was not privy to his goals, she barely knew him, she had spoken to him only twice on the phone after meeting him. She didn't know what he wanted, not in the long run. She didn't know what he could do at all. After the ctOS blackout of 2013, everyone knew the vigilante was, at least, a hacker with some access, though just how far or how deep nobody knew and Blume certainly wasn't telling anyone. Personally, after the short time she had ever known him, there wasn't much she would put past him.

She looked at the new files on her phone and didn't question why her firewall hadn't stood up to him for even a second. It just didn't seem to be worth worrying about.

"What's different today?"

"It's short notice, I know," he said, though if it was supposed to be an apology, it barely came across as one. "Some Hollywood people are here, they are thinking about using the club to shoot film scenes. They were scheduled for next weekend but the visit was moved forward. It's a good opportunity, they'll distract Haugh and his security for you."

The Indigo State was housed in a modern building, expensive glass walls, catching and amplifying the blue lights shining up from the ground. A long line of people was queueing outside under the watchful eye of several bouncers.

"You're on the list," Pearce said when the magnate rolled to a halt across from the entrance.

She only nodded and got out of the car. She was feeling tense and she didn't want him to notice. It wasn't the first time she had been back in a nightclub, Chicago PD had put her in several such places, though most hadn't had the pompous front the Indigo State sported. It wasn't any indicator of legality at any rate. A good front was often just as good as keeping your location secret.

As she stepped into the Indigo State, the music rolled against her, laced with pretentious laughter and the air was heavy with perfume and faint traces of sweat and alcohol. It was a stylish crowd, dancing under a faked starry sky. Perhaps this was less sinister than the Infinite 92, but she could almost sense the dark secrets right underneath her feet. She spotted the men within the crowd who didn't quite belong, who came and went through a cordoned-off door and a narrow stairwell visible behind it.

Pearce was right. Something more went on in this place than met the eye.

* * *

The rhythmic beat of the music from the dance-floor below chased her still, reminded her of just how short her timeframe was. Haugh's visitors from Hollywood had created a stir, had drawn people from the crowd who recognised them and security had had to move fast to prevent a scene, enough for her to slip away undetected and find herself on the upper floor and in the largest of several offices.

She couldn't quite decide if Haugh was just out of it or whether he was one of the sane ones. ctOS' complete and utter outage — not to mention its city-wide malfunction before that — could put a more balanced man on edge. Perhaps rejecting all this new tech wasn't just for the paranoid and stupid anymore. It certainly created more work for everyone.

The tiny screwdriver hummed quietly to itself as she unscrewed the casing of Haugh's laptop, put the bug inside. Ironically, Haugh's 'no network' policy probably meant he had nothing _else _configured at all. Not even a firewall, even if Pearce apparently barely acknowledged their existence.

She screwed the case closed, dropped the screwdriver back into her purse and rearranged the computer back on the desk in its rightful place. Haugh would never know until it was too late, would never…

The door opened and Donna didn't even have time to drop like a stone behind the desk. Damn the music. She should have heard someone come. This is what she got for gloating about Haugh's stupidity, she thought.

She threw up her hands and took a step back.

"I'm sorry!" she announced, making her voice a little shriller than it should be. At this point, her best bet was to play dumb. It made people feel superior and she didn't seem like much of a threat anymore.

"I got lost!" she added for good measure.

The man in the door wore a dark suit, house security then, frowning at her from across the room. He wasn't buying that, either.

"Looking for what?" he demanded.

"A private place!" she babbled, stepping around the desk. "I wanted to do a line of coke! And I heard you didn't like that in this place and I didn't want to do it in the restroom…"

He didn't seem to be buying it. In fact, he took a step back and gave the lock on the door a critical look while carefully keeping her in his line of sight.

"Door was locked," he said. "Stop bullshitting me."

On the up-side, he wasn't going for his gun. Girls in high-heels and short dresses rarely seemed dangerous. Until you got a heel in your privates, that was, but if she tried, her entire story would fall apart.

"It wasn't locked!" she declared. "I… I'm sorry, I don't want any trouble."

He was obviously done listening to her story, she could see it in his face, clear as day. He put a hand to his earpiece and pointed with an outstretched arm, "Sit down there and shut up! No dumb moves!"

To his colleague, he said, "Get the boss, I found something in his office that doesn't belong."

Donna did as she was told, demurely clutching her bag in her lap and giving the bouncer her best imitation of confused innocence, but if it was working on him in any way, he was too professional to show it.

Not much later, he stepped aside to allow his boss inside and two other security.

Haugh was a tall man, badly combining a scrawny built with a flabby potbelly. He had wrapped both these things in an expensive designer suit that gave him some semblance of poise, sitting behind his desk and watching her with a kind of puzzled anger. He looked past Donna at his henchmen.

Haugh said, "What do you think? Cop? South Club? Fixer? Looks a bit too classy to be Viceroy."

Even without any — known — criminal affiliation, Haugh obviously knew how the game was being played. He couldn't hold his position if he was this weak-willed. And he was potentially at war with all of these groups, at least if Pearce's information was good and Haugh had independent backers.

"You've got it all wrong!" Donna tried again, playing her role for all it was worth.

"Wrong, eh?" he asked through a grin of startlingly white teeth. "You were snooping around in my office."

She swallowed dry, trying to clear her throat. "No, I got lost, okay? I was… I was looking for a quiet place. Do a line of coke. I know you don't approve, I didn't want to get into any trouble."

Haugh seemed unconvinced. She couldn't blame him, perhaps the story could have used a little more work, but usually in such matters, simple things worked best.

"Where is the coke?"

She shrugged, helplessly. "Well, I was already done when your thug showed up and scared me half to death." She opened her eyes wide. "Please don't hurt me."

"What were you doing in here?" he asked as if their previous exchange hadn't happened. Haugh seemed to have himself convinced she wasn't what she seemed and she couldn't decide if she should congratulate him on his intuition or not.

She bit down on her lip, not just playing anymore. If Haugh slipped her control completely, if he never believed her well enough to make the call…

"I can prove it," she said, voice carefully pitched to waver a little between fear and conviction. "Do you have a phone? Call and ask for Nicholas Crispin, I'm his… girl."

Haugh hesitated. She had no idea just how much the name meant to him. From what she knew, Haugh had been one of the second tier bosses who swam to the top in the gap created when Quinn's auction was curb-stomped a year before.

"Should I know that name?"

"Hey, boss, sounds familiar," said one of Haugh's henchmen. "He's, like, stinking rich, knew this guy, who worked…"

Haugh waved him into silence impatiently. "I know who he is, idiot," he snapped. He looked at Donna. "Everyone can throw around a big name to save their hide. It's not terribly believable, either. Crispin's dead."

"Keeping a low profile_," _she corrected, raising her voice a little. "It was so _terrible. _Cops all over the place and bodies piling up? It just seemed like a good time to go on holiday."

She could practically see the thoughts work behind Haugh's eyes, assessing her and the situation. Did she act spooked enough to be Crispin's girl? Or _too_ spooked_? _She had no idea what lie would help and which would make it worse.

Haugh looked at his henchman again. "Give me your phone."

The henchmen sprang into action and handed it over.

"Number?"

She told him and after he'd dialled, he put the phone between them, its ringing bounced around the room in the tense silence.

It took forever, at least that's what it felt like to her. Long enough, in fact, for her to wonder if Pearce hadn't abandoned her for some reason. He had enough enemies, perhaps he'd ran afoul of one of them and now couldn't hold up his end of the plan. She looked away from the phone and at Haugh, wondering what he would do if her story fell through. He couldn't know about the bug and he had yet to search her bag. If he did, however…

She let her gaze wander from Haugh to his henchmen, gauging her chances to slip past them. It didn't look good. Chicago PD had given her some training, but she didn't fool herself into thinking she stood a chance against three men like that.

_"Who is this?"_

Haugh said, "I'm calling from the club Indigo State, am I speaking with Mr. Crispin?"

There was a long pause, far too long for her comfort, but she had been spared ever meeting Crispin, she had no idea what to think of him. The question was, was Pearce any better informed? Was Haugh?

_"Who's asking?"_

"I'm Haugh, I'm the manager of this establishment. We had some trouble with a girl. She gave me this number."

Another long pause. _"Poppy? It's her night off." _

"Well, she has a few strange ideas of what to do with it," Haugh remarked. "We are holding her for you."

_"Good," _the voice on the other end of the line grew darker. _"Not a scratch on her." _

She had never heard anyone put as much sinister implication in just one line. She played her part, looking worried down on her hands clasped in her lap. At least, in this way, the men around her had less of her expression to read, less to interpret in this way or that.

Haugh took the phone and handed it back to his henchman. He looked back at Donna.

"Nicholas Crispin," Haugh mused. "No one really left who can tell what happened at the auction. Most security dead, most buyers in jail, girls scattered everywhere. Everyone trying to keep their heads down, especially with Lucky Quinn biting the bullet not much later. Tell me, Poppy, is he really such a monster?"

She glanced up at him, past her eyelashes. "Do you know him?"

Because he was obviously probing her and she'd rather have it out of the way.

"We never had the pleasure," Haugh said, a little tartly. She guessed he simply hadn't been up high enough in the pecking order to move in the same circles as Crispin.

"One of you know the man?" Haugh asked his henchmen, then looked at Donna, searching her face for a reaction. "We wouldn't want to hand you over to just _anyone, _would we?"

* * *

Rain had left a glittering sheen on the cracked asphalt street, reflecting the long rows of streetlights and the gaudier lights from the Indigo State's front. Although there was not much traffic, cars went by at an irregular interval, some obviously looking for an open parking spot along the street. People came and went from the Indigo State, the line as long as it had been when the night began.

Two bouncers held sway over the comings and goings with polite, unobtrusive menace just because they were both very big guys. They had noticed the dark magnate as it stopped a little down the road, just outside the immediate spill of the bright blue lights of the club. It parked there for a long minute with nothing happening, its tinted windows keeping whatever was inside, hidden.

Dark cars parked just off from your front door tended not to be a good sign, the bouncers edged closer together, exchanging looks, wondering if this fell within their responsibilities or not.

Their problems were solved when their boss pushed his way past them from inside the club. Haugh seemed just a little bit livid.

"Getting called down," he muttered with an angry glance at Donna as if it was her fault, which, of course, it was.

'Crispin' had called the henchman whose phone Haugh had used earlier, announcing he was at the Indigo and expected delivery of his property promptly. Haugh had tried arguing, but had been shot down so harshly, Donna could practically see him regret putting the phone on speaker again.

As their little group approached the magnate, the driver got out, hurried around the car and just about managed to open the door for his passenger when they arrived.

The street had become oddly deserted since the magnate had stopped. No passing cars and their harsh, revealing headlights and it was a good trick, keeping well away from what was potentially a well lit room in which Haugh had all the opportunity he needed to actually _recognise _the man he was most certainly _not_ expecting. And Aiden Pearce's face had been plastered across every screen in the city for months.

Not that too much of his face was visible just now, even without the trickery. Collar up and a dark shawl around his throat, obscuring the line of his jaw and the shadow of the fedora covering everything but the mouth. He stepped clear of the car and the driver withdrew a subservient step. Pearce leaned against the back of the car, crossed his arms over his chest and studied them from the beneath the fedora in slow-burning silence.

It was a good show, Donna decided, after she'd stolen a quick glance at Haugh and caught him looking much less sure of himself out here and facing this rather imposing stranger. Who, just to make Haugh even more nervous, made absolutely no attempt to speak first.

The moment broke when Haugh's wounded pride kicked back in, he remembered that his men were watching him and that he was on his home turf.

"Mr. Crispin, I presume?" Haugh asked.

'Crispin' inclined his head slightly and didn't respond to the question. "What trouble?" he asked instead with careful emphasis on each word.

"Your girl," Haugh said with some disdain. "Has been snooping around in my office. When we caught her she told us a stupid story. Really, insults my intelligence and all."

"What there is of it," 'Crispin' said lowly, but didn't give Haugh time to bristle at the slight. "I'm sure she just got lost. It happens. Sometimes."

'Crispin' pushed himself from the car, dropped his hands into the pockets of the weathered leather coat he was wearing. It made Haugh's men twitch and startle, Donna could feel them just behind her, unsure whether they should react or not. 'Crispin' noticed and stopped for a brief moment until they relaxed again.

He tilted his head a little, just enough to convey a certain _curiosity. _

He pulled one hand free from the pocket and held a rolled-up bundle of money out.

"Let's make this go away," he said dully. He took a step towards Haugh, close enough to offer the money and out of the shadow. A streetlamp's light slipped around the fedora as he moved and the angle changed.

And the street lights went out, easy as turning a switch in your living room. Haugh and his men shuffled, glancing up and down the street, then back at the still well-lit club and the lights still shining from windows along the street.

"That's not a blackout," one of Haugh's men observed, rather unnecessarily.

"Fucking ctOS," another muttered.

'Crispin' hadn't retracted his arm when the lights went down, he'd simply stopped, suddenly reduced to a distantly lit, black outline against metal-grey darkness.

Haugh, finally, to assuage Donna's fraying nerves, seemed to buy into the act. Or perhaps he had been looking at the money when he probably _should _have been looking at who offered it, while it had been bright enough to see. If today's luck held for another minute or so, Haugh would never even know his mistake.

Haugh took the money. "All right," he said. "Your girl was never here."

He glanced over his shoulder and one of the henchmen gave her a shove, not too rough under her presumed owner's critical gaze. It still nearly made her stumble, she had grown stiff in her tension and her flimsy dress wasn't doing much against the leeched late-night cold crawling over the asphalt. Her heels clicked loudly as she walked the few steps toward 'Crispin'. He took the other hand out of his pocket and wrapped it around her waist, letting it rest heavy and possessively low on her hip for a moment.

"Get in the car," he growled.

Before she had time to even contemplate the warning in his tone — more than playacting, this — the driver came forward and opened the door. He put a hand to her upper arm and helped her gently along as she scrambled into the car. She scooted to the opposite seat, watched as the door was thrown closed and the driver hurried around to get behind the wheel.

"On the other hand," Haugh was saying on the dark street outside the luxury car. "I definitely remember seeing you here, Mr. Crispin."

'Crispin' took his time, let the silence grow heavy and stifling, smog drawing all the oxygen from the air. Then he turned away, quite deliberately, not bothering to speak to Haugh's face.

"We're done here," he said, gloved hand already on the handle, Donna already heard its quiet click.

"Mr. _Crispin," _Haugh raised his voice and the street was so empty, Donna thought she could hear something like an echo.

"I'm absolutely sure," Haugh continued, a new sneer in his voice. "It'd be a shame if the wrong people heard you were back in Chicago."

Pearce let go of the door again, turn around and for the first time since the charade had begun, with anything other than measured menace. Instead, he took three, quick long strides that brought him close to Haugh, playing the darkness for all it was worth.

Even from where she sat, bad angle and worse lighting and all, she saw Haugh flinch before he could stop himself. It created a little shockwave through his men, once again unsure if they were required to interfere.

"I _said,_" 'Crispin' rasped. "We are done."

And Haugh yielded, out of a sense that his dignity couldn't be saved if he kept pressing because 'Crispin' had turned out to be exactly the kind of intimidating motherfucker people always assumed. Donna wouldn't be surprised if Haugh found a more weasely way to make use of this, but Pearce would have his finger right on his pulse by then.

Come to think of it, maybe it'd even stir Haugh up a bit. For someone who professed squeaky-cleanness, he sure didn't have qualms trying to apply blackmail.

Donna finally allowed herself to curl up in her seat when the magnate started moving, it's motion silent and smooth, as befit a car this expensive.

"You okay?" Pearce asked eyeing her from the side. He'd let his collar drop and pushed the fedora back far enough to allow _some _view of his face, especially as the street lamps flickered back on, some of them taking a little longer than others.

"Yeah, fine," she said. "It all went according to plan. I got one bug into Haugh's laptop and dropped a few others in his office when no one was looking. But I'm not sure if they're close enough to anything."

"Easy way to find out," Pearce said with a smile. He briefly looked away from her and scanned the houses rushing past. He pulled his phone from the coat and quickly tapped it twice. Just in time, as it turned out, for road blocks to retract at the end of the road. A line of cars had formed on the other side.

He kept his attention fixed on the phone and when he said nothing for long minutes, Donna finally put a hand on the seat between them and leaned over to look at the screen from the side. He shuffled a little, looked at her. "Oh, sorry," he muttered and angled the phone toward her.

But he was going too fast through the data for her to make much sense of. She spotted something that looked like calendars, spreadsheets of numbers, but gone too quickly to read.

"I was almost expecting there's just Haugh's unpublished novel of vampire unicorns," Donna said. "He's crazy enough for that sort of thing."

"No," Pearce said earnestly. "He's running a market downstairs."

"A market?"

"Quinn had blackmail on Blume, kept them leashed, but Quinn's dead and the blackmail is all public. Until they find a new arrangement, off the grid is fashionable in the criminal underworld. That's what the Indigo State is. A ctOS proof marketplace."

"How big is this?"

"Not sure, can't tell from this. It can't have been operational for long, but it looks like it's good business for Haugh and whoever cooked up the idea in the first place."

She pulled her gaze away from the phone to study his face. "You could take this to the police. Leak it, gives them enough reason to raid the place."

"They'll just shut it down," he said. "And the backers will just set up shop elsewhere. No, cops can't move on this."

She wasn't sure what she heard in his voice, but it was unpleasant and rough, a side of him she hadn't seen before, only suspected. It almost looked like greed in the darkness, an eagerness to have this to himself and not trust someone else with it.

Perhaps she should argue the point, or even ignore him and tip the cops off herself. She could just claim she'd stumbled over the Indigo State by accident. She had enough pull to get things moving in the right direction. But then, Pearce had a point, too. A place like that was just one node in a far larger web. It would require careful planning to take down all — or at least most — of it.

Before she had the chance to make up her mind, the driver said, "Pearce, I think we're being followed."

Rather than lower the phone, Pearce swiped the screen and replaced Haugh's files with some kind of custom interface.

"We are," Pearce confirmed after a moment.

"Haugh?" Donna asked, though it didn't seem likely. Haugh hadn't had enough time to prepare something like that.

"I don't know," Pearce said. He looked up and around, scanned the cars outside. "If it is, he's better than I thought."

"What should I do?" the driver asked. "Try to shake them?"

"No, stop the car," Pearce said. "You did your part. I'll drive."

* * *

_End of _Nightcall: Indigo State_

* * *

_**Revised **on 05/June/2015 and 01/June/2016_


	15. Nightcall: Bad Faith

**Note: **Allison Paxton's story was originally part of its own oneshot and a concept I've been wanting to do right from the start. What Aiden does has to have consequences, even if he's usually too much of a hypocrite to acknowledge it.

Also **note**: Poppy's reasoning _is _a bit skewed.

**Warning:** Deals with some unpleasant things and it causes some emotional whiplashing. Life can be cruel like that.

* * *

[summary: Poppy is forced to serve as bait.]

**_Nightcall: Bad Faith**

* * *

_"What's up?"_

"… can you come?"

_"Something wrong?"_

"You could say that."

_"On my way."_

* * *

Fear was a curious emotion, she had spent nearly a year with it until she had barely noticed it was there anymore. The human mind made its arrangements with such things and even found a kind of peace with its ultimate fate. She had had convinced herself that part of her life was done, when the cops came and Quinn's auction blew up in his face. When the cops offered her to clear her record if she worked for them.

That wasn't to say her life was never in danger or that it slipped her control every so often. No one, ever, was always in control and trying to achieve it was a sure way to drive yourself mad. But she'd had it covered, her life was her own and she used the line like a mantra every time she found herself in a place she didn't want to be.

But perhaps, at the end of it, her confidence was still fragile. The Infinite 92 had done too much damage for it to heal quickly, perhaps it never would and the best she could hope for was scar tissue in her mind.

So she feared. Many things in the world, more than she was willing to admit and she supposed she was in good company with the majority of people on the planet, struggling with their own tragedies. But there was also _this, _a gun in her face and the concept of fear was less of an abstract, less even than it had been waiting for Crispin and clutching a knife she knew was too short to puncture his heart.

The woman on the other end of the gun watched her with wary attention. She'd waited for Donna outside her apartment and jumped her, overpowered her so smoothly and quickly, Donna suspected the woman had some training. She'd dragged her into her home and forced her down on her couch before Donna even knew what was happening.

She'd thrust Donna's phone into her face alongside her gun, yelled at her to call the vigilante and since sat glowering across from Donna, gun loosely in her hand, but her body retained too much tension for Donna to risk anything. This woman knew what she was doing, or at least she _thought _she did.

"Why…?" Donna began, but her voice had gone too faint. She cleared her throat and the woman startled, gave her a warning look.

"What do you want?" Donna asked.

The woman said nothing, just stared at Donna for the longest time, then looked down at her gun for just as long, it seemed almost as if she was surprised to see it there.

"I was a soldier," the woman said. "I was at war. Afghanistan. It's hard to say I liked it, because that makes me sound like I'm crazy, but it's ironic, I think, because it turns out that's not where the danger was. I came back home and I met the most perfect man you can imagine..."

She was barely speaking to Donna, more to herself and her narrative didn't need to make sense to anyone else. While she spoke, her gaze wandered away from Donna, only to snap back at the slightest movement.

She frowned. "So, what are you?" she asked, dropping her story and with it, any hint of warmth was gone from her voice. Instead, it was laced with contempt.

"I don't know what you want with me," Donna said tonelessly.

"Your _friend, _he took something from me and I don't think he even knows," the woman said. "Or cares. Because I learned that, too. In the war. Sometimes people snap, they go mad with bloodlust."

"My friend," Donna echoed. "Pearce?"

"He's a hard man to keep up with. You're much easier to follow."

She put her head to the side and her expression softened for no more than a second. "I'm sorry I had to involve you, but I can't find him, so I think it's prudent I make him come to me instead."

Donna considered, she forced herself to look away from the gun and into the woman's eyes instead. "You met the most perfect man… and?" she prompted so gently, the woman didn't seem to realise it.

"We married. I left the army and I opened a gym. Taught self-defence. Still do, but I don't have the time anymore. No, it's more like, why should I even bother? It's weird, I can't work up the energy for these people and their weaknesses. I remember it mattered, but… now it's hard to think sometimes."

She had only switched on one light and it was off to the side, not enough to see her clearly unless she turned her head toward it. The light outlined her poise on Donna's kitchen chair, the way she held the gun. A soldier, she'd said, it made sense, but her story was still disjointed and she didn't seem to care to make it more coherent.

"You look tired," Donna said and the woman gave a hard smile.

"It's tough work. I can't sleep anyway," she said and shrugged. "Might as well be roaming the streets, you never know who you'll stumble across, after all. I got lucky, you know. I spotted you the other night outside the Indigo State and I recognised you."

"From where?"

"The news. You were in a picture with a few cops and other whores. I did some digging and once I had a name, all I needed was a favour from a friend at the DMV. Could've been easier, but I'm no hacker, ctOS doesn't play so nice with me."

Donna shifted in her seat, trying to relax cramped muscles, but it didn't do much good. Her position wasn't her problem. Being held at gunpoint in her own home was.

"You'd better know what you're doing," she said. "Because I really don't. What's going to happen? Pearce shows up, you kill him and then what? You go back to your perfect husband and your perfect gym?"

The woman smiled again, unpleasantly. "You think it's the first time I've killed?"

"I think it's the first time like this," Donna said.

"Of course _you_ know what you're talking about," the woman sneered.

Despite herself, Donna felt her thoughts wander. She was trying to talk the woman out of whatever it was she wanted to do, without even knowing what had prompted it, but the direction of her own words brought bitter memories of her own and she wasn't sure she could face it. She'd take the gun over it any day.

"I don't have to explain myself to you," Donna said. "You broke into my house, you punched me in the face and you're holding a gun to it now."

"It's not personal," the woman said dismissively.

"Well, _fuck it," _Donna hissed with a quick surge of vitriol. "My home, my face. If that's not personal, I don't know what is."

"Pick your friends better next time," the woman said. "He isn't exactly rushing to your rescue, either."

Donna kept her gaze fixed on her, roused by her own memories and so vastly out of patience with being told what to do, she said, "Good question, isn't it? What if you got everything wrong and Pearce doesn't show. What happens to me? Will you murder me in cold blood?"

"Collateral damage, it can't always be avoided."

"So that's a yes," Donna said, edged forward in her seat. "You'll kill me. Tell me why I should sit still for that."

The woman immediately tensed, straightened and raised the gun from it's more casual angle. "Don't do anything stupid," she warned.

Donna kept pushing herself forward. The entire length of the room was between them, a couch table and in a straight line, she'd tangle with a stool, too, before she was even close to the woman. More than enough time to fire that gun, even for someone untrained. But Donna decided she had started on the course, she had to finish it now, had to push until something gave.

"What do I have to lose?" Donna asked through clenched teeth. Her heart was trying to beat itself out of her chest. "You'll kill me anyway."

"Sit back down," the woman ordered, but Donna folded her fingers around the arm of the couch, for whatever additional leverage it gave her. She had thrown away any element of surprise and she was done being patient with this madwoman. She'd never done submission well, before the Infinite 92 and she'd only learned how to pick her battles, _act _submissive just to stay unhurt. It'd never been the real thing and now it was too late to learn the lesson.

And from the moment of stillness, everything happened at the same time. Donna leapt from her seat, launched herself forward with what strength she had. Later, she would realise that there were _two _shots, from different guns with different bangs and the low hissing of plaster from the side. But in that instant, she only saw the woman's gun and the spark at its muzzle as it fired. Her foot snagged on the stool and she ignored it, kept going for the woman, who threw herself down and kicked at Donna.

The gun fell from her bloodied hand and Donna wasted no time wondering why there would be blood at all. The woman tangled her legs with Donna's and twisted, tore her from her already precarious balance and made her fall face first into the carpet. Desperately, Donna groped for the woman's gun because it was the only thing that would tip this fight in her favour. She didn't get very far. An elbow came down on her neck and Donna felt herself slump, momentarily disoriented and her body going limp.

She heard something shatter behind her and before she'd blinked her vision clear, a hand settled on her shoulder and yanked her up and across the floor, out of the way. Blindly, she struggled against the grip, but it was gone again immediately and it left her sitting on the floor in the pieces of the stool that had broken her stride before.

Aiden Pearce ignored her, bore down on her hostage-taker before the woman had fully recovered. It was a short struggle, both of them moving fast and precise, but the woman had all the disadvantages, already downed and wounded as she was. Donna saw the solid length of the baton, crashing in quick succession, into the woman's leg and then the side of her neck.

Pearce stepped clear of her and she crumpled to the ground. He picked up her gun before he stepped away and finally looked down at Donna with an almost thoughtful expression. He picked her up and half-carried her back to the couch.

She slipped down on it and things slowly began to register.

"Sorry about the wall," he said. "And the door."

He returned to the woman, pulled something from his pocket which Donna somewhat belatedly recognised as zip-ties.

Looking away from him, she saw the torn hole in the wall, roughly on level with where the woman's arm had been before. The lock on her door was kicked in, the door hanging ajar. The hallway beyond was in darkness, but it could only be a few more moments before her neighbours appeared.

"Anytime," she said.

Out of nowhere, the pain hit, throbbing in her head and her torso felt as if it was on fire. It took her a long moment to even place the pain. Slowly, she reached around and felt along the edges of her torn shirt, for the wound in her side. Blood had soaked into her shirt.

"I've been shot," she said quietly.

Pearce glanced at the door and hesitated before he walked over to her. He sat down at the edge of the couch, his coat spilled down the side, long enough to touch the floor.

"Let me see," he said, pulled the scarf from his face.

She raised her arm and hissed at the pain the movement caused. She reached for the shirt with her other hand, eyes carefully trained on some spot in midair in front of her. It didn't hurt bad enough, she told herself, and it was hardly the first time she had seen blood, even her own. Perhaps credibility with CPD had mellowed her. She sighed with relief when Pearce took over, carefully but firmly pushed the shirt aside after using a tip of it to wipe the blood away. She felt a new sting when he placed gloved fingers at the side of the wound to get a better look.

"Grazing shot, mostly cauterised itself," he said after a moment. "Let a doctor look at it."

She didn't dare lower her arm, she didn't want to agitate the wound, so she dropped the arm along the back of the couch.

"Next time," Pearce said. "Don't force a confrontation."

"Waiting for rescue can take a too long," she stated coldly, pulling a face and pulling herself back into a sitting position. "How did you know when to shoot?"

"Camera from the building across the street," he said and she could've sworn he smirked when her gaze automatically searched in the comparative darkness beyond her windows. She couldn't see anything out there.

"And I was listening in with the mic on your laptop," he added.

She looked at the laptop, too, then back at him. In retrospect, she blamed the adrenaline, but perhaps it was something else entirely, something the woman had stirred up when she challenged her. Of course it would have been the smarter choice to sit tight and wait for rescue, but there had been one time in her life when she hadn't fought when she should have.

Or it _was _the adrenaline, but Pearce looked good this close and he hadn't moved away yet. Serious. Trustworthy_. _In the end, she supposed, there were worse reasons than trust. Pain pulled on her skin as she put her hand on his neck and the most surprising thing, in the end, was that she managed to surprise him at all, tightened her grip on him and leaned in, kissed him with all she had, because she was certain it would only be a moment…

His lips were dry under hers, slightly cracked, parted when she took him unaware and he didn't respond at all, just let himself be kissed in unexpected, counterpoint passivity, but she didn't remember how to stop, just coaxed and at least he was alive and warm and then he _did_ kiss back, aggressive enough to match her sudden hunger. She felt the tendons in his neck strain under her fingers, but she couldn't tell if he fought with leaning away or into it.

The edge of his cap scratched the side of her head and it seemed to be the incentive for him to pull back. She didn't want to let go, sucked his tongue back into her mouth and followed him back, despite the new tear in her side. He settled a hand on her arm, held her and finally freed himself from her, but he was still too close, easy to reach if it didn't hurt so much. She couldn't read in his face, couldn't tell what there was in his eyes, but she knew she wanted more of it.

The light in the hallway turned on, closely followed by cautious footsteps outside. Her door was given a faint shove, just enough to make it open a few inches more. Pearce tensed away from her, turned so his back was fully to the door. Donna forced her head back up and hoped she had her facial expression back under control.

"Ms. Dean?" a male voice inquired.

"I'm all right!" she announced. "Just… a little trouble."

Her neighbour edged a little further into the room, but not enough to spot the bound woman or to get a good look at Pearce. His attention was fixed on Donna anyway.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Like I said…occupational hazard," she waved with her arm vaguely. "You know I work for the cops, right? They'll be here any minute, it's under control."

"… yes?" he asked. His gaze flitted around, rested on Pearce for a moment. "Do you need any help?"

"I already have help," Donna said, forced a reassuring smile. "It's fine, really. Cops will take your statement, don't go back to bed immediately."

"Okay, Ms. Dean," he nodded. "I'll be just down the hall."

He withdrew, she heard him talk to somebody else, some other neighbour in the hallway, but no one appeared at her door again.

She took a deep breath, still tasting him on her lips. "You…" she started, unsure herself of what she would say next, but she could already tell he was going to leave. She didn't think he liked surprises much, even this kind of surprise.

A frown had settled on his face and he straightened the cap. "We really should call the cops," he said and she wasn't sure if he was affected by what she had done at all. "Will you be okay?"

"Sure," she said, chewing on her lower lip. The woman was stirring back to consciousness slowly, but she wouldn't be back in fighting condition any time soon. "What should I say?"

"She's got a history of psychological issues," he shrugged and got up from the couch. "It's easy to discredit most of what she says. I was here, I helped, because the vigilante does that. Other than that, you don't know me. Should work out."

She pressed her arm to her side carefully, but couldn't quite decide if it made the pain better or worse. She listened to his 911 call. She watched as he went back to the woman to check her bounds and got spit in the face for his trouble.

They waited in heavy silence, together and strangely apart, until Pearce's phone told him a police cruiser had just stopped outside her apartment and he left with just a quick nod in her direction.

She didn't know what she should have said, either.

* * *

_"Yes?"_

"I thought you wanted to know about Allison Paxton? Unless you already do, of course."

_"She's 41 years old, divorced, her gym is facing foreclosure. She was in Afghanistan and honourably discharged five years ago. How is she doing?"_

"Depends, but I'd say not so good. She's obsessed with you. She'll stay in custody for now. Whether she'll face hospitalisation or prison, I don't know."

_"You had any trouble?"_

"Not really, but the vigilante saving me better not become a habit."

_"This one's my fault anyway."_

"She claimed we were in league, but she can't prove anything and she's not calm enough to make people listen to her. I feel a little sorry for her, even though I still want to punch her. I didn't get a good look at her file, I don't have that kind of authority, but people tell me things."

_"I have a little more, if you want."_

"Yes, she invaded my home, after all, might as well know why… So, uhm, Pearce…"

_"Call me Aiden."_

"_Aiden_, well, that makes things much better… I really don't know how to say this, so I'll just forgo any eloquence. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come on to you like that. That was pretty embarrassing and I don't know, I probably made you feel uncomfortable. I don't even know you that well. Maybe you have a girlfriend or a boyfriend or you just don't do this sort of thing. I shouldn't have… just… I should've… Dammit, say something."

_"None of those."_

"What?"

_"No girlfriend, no boyfriend, no abstinence. I just lead a very strange life, Donna."_

"I really am sorry. That was clumsy. I must have gone rusty in the Infinite 92. Not like I have to do a lot of flirting in that place. Everyone knew why they were there, after all. I guess I just don't remember what it's like out here in the real world. It's been a long time since I had the freedom to, well, to make my own choices."

_"I'm flattered." _

"I still put my foot in my mouth. And it irks me, because I can't take it back and because I'm afraid it's going to change things between us. I don't even know if there's anything between us in the first place, but I'm so very grateful that you wanted to trust me and gave him that job. I can imagine… I doubt trust comes easy to you. It doesn't for me, not anymore. But what you do? I agree with what I've seen and if I can help more, I want to. But… I didn't need to make things more complicated."

_"We do work well together."_

"So… what's changed now? Will I live it down?"

_"Don't worry, it's the fight, it gets to you sometimes. And I should apologise, too." _

"How is that?"

_"Because I can't be sure of your reasoning. I don't really know what happened to you at the Infinite 92, but I don't want you to feel obliged to me in any way. Certainly not that way."_

"That's what you think?"

_"It's a possibility. I don't want to use you." _

"Other than for planting those bugs?"

_"I asked, you agreed. Besides, you told me you wanted to help and it was a good match. Just business."_

"And you think kissing could be just business for me?"

_"Wasn't it?"_

"I don't think you have the right to have an opinion on that. Maybe… maybe we should both not second-guess each other. And this conversation? It's just making things worse. I can't take back what happened, I can't take back what I've said, either. I don't need anyone to judge me, not even you. And if that's going to be a problem, I'd rather know it straightaway."

_"Donna…"_

"Say it."

_"I'm going to send you what I have on Allison Paxton."_

"What does she have to do with it?"

_"I know much more about you than you know about me. If you still want to… after this… I'd like to invite you to dinner."_

* * *

**To**: Donna Dean

**From**: AP

**Message: **I don't really remember the event, only ctos does.

**Attachment: **ctos_p_recording_flagged_vigilante_a_paxton

"… vigilante has to die."

_"You sound so serious."_

"He killed them! He killed my babies! And he probably doesn't even know or care or… I dunno. Look, I saw him. I was stuck in the car, but he was there, the cops had him cornered after the steam pipe blew out. Everything was chaos, but I've been to war, I don't lose my head like that. I know what I _saw." _

_"I didn't doubt what you saw, Allison, I know what kind of soldier you are. But are you sure? It sounds like an accident. Steam pipes blow sometimes."_

"Yes, maybe. Good timing, though, that took out two cop cruisers. Besides, I wasn't close enough to the pipe. We were _all _still alive at that point. We only crashed and the twins were crying, but I can tell, they weren't hurt, just scared. I know the sounds they make… Fuck."

_"I don't know what to say. I'm so sorry. And all the sorries in the world won't change a thing." _

"Yeah, they won't. But he will be sorry when I'm through with him."

_"But…"_

"Because we were stuck, cars boxed us in from three side and the cops were going past on the other side, trying to cut off his escape and you know what he fucking did? He jumped on the roof of a car and fired at us. Looked like a grenade launcher to me, but there was steam everywhere, not sure with kind. He was aiming for the police and he hit a cruiser perfectly. You never heard just how loud it is when a whole car blows up. Deafens you when you're so close. You get that ringing in your ear and it sometimes doesn't go away for days. We were thrown around in the shockwave… and… fire everywhere and shards from the blown-up up car were flying everywhere… there was fire and smoke and… my babies were suddenly silent. So don't you _dare_ tell me it wasn't his fault. It was. He fired a grenade in the midst of all that to save his own skin, so he didn't have stand fucking trial for his crimes."

_"Do you know even know what you're saying? You can't just take the law in your own hands. That's the mistake _he _made. That's what caused all of this. You're just making everything so much worse." _

"The authorities can't touch him. Everytime they try something like this happens. I can't be the first person who lost someone… everything… in all this bullshit. He's dangerous and I've seen that, too, you know. Sometimes people just snap. You give them a gun and tell them to become an accomplished killer and when they do, you give them a medal. And then they kill and sometimes they forget how to stop. It's a fucking power-trip and not everyone can or wants to get down from it. And that's him, I swear. Standing on that car? Like he was out of some hero-worship movie? This guy's tripping _hard_."

_"Perhaps it's more complicated than that." _

"What sort of bullshit argument is that even?!"

_"Probably the truth. Allison, please, listen. Think for a moment. You lost so much. How much more does it have to be? Who will _you _hurt, trying to catch him?"_

"I'll be careful, not like him."

_"How will you even find him?"_

"I don't know yet. But I'll find a way. There's nothing else left I can do."

_"Yes, there is. Let it go. We are all here to help, if you'd let us."_

"No… but… thank you, but I can't. I'm sorry, but I can't."

_"Allison, please…"_

"I'm going to hang up now. I'm so sorry. I can't… Bye, Dad."

_"Allison? Damn, girl, don't do this, don't…"_

* * *

_End of _Nightcall: Bad Faith_

* * *

**Revised on 05/June/2015  
**


	16. Nightcall: Flashpoint - Part 1

**Warning: **Don't drink and drive (unless you're a fictional badass)!

**Another warning: **Riding shotgun with a crazy driver is _not _fun. Aiden's really lucky Poppy's got a him-shaped blind spot because he's just asking to be punched in the throat for all of that.

* * *

[summary: best or worst first date ever?]

**_Nightcall: Flashpoint – Part 1**

* * *

It was a cosy little restaurant, hidden away in a Chicago School building between two far more imposing skyscrapers, the light on its rustic, wooden sign lost among the glittering brightness of the city around it. It was Italian, but not just pizza and pasta, but authentic, far more varied food spread out over several courses and accompanied by rich red wine.

They had come to this place the wrong way around, she knew. There was too much knowledge, too many dark secret they had already shared and that wasn't how it was done. You didn't know these things about someone who might — or might not — be your lover, before you knew the names of their parents and the school they went to. There was no script for this.

_She _was nervous and tried not to let it show, until the first flutter passed.

If Aiden was nervous at all, she couldn't tell. He was smiling more than she had ever seen him, casually talkative in a way she hadn't expected, easily picking out topics that weren't minefields without being meaningless.

For a man who was such a mystery to the world, he didn't seem to mind her questions. He'd grown up in Belfast until just before his sixteenth birthday, when his mother had taken her children and ran all the way to Chicago to escape.

"What's your father like?" she asked.

"Now? I don't know," he shrugged, looked into his glass rather than her. "Never really looked back. He was a man who always got things wrong. I think he meant well, but he just made everything worse. He got into debt, he got into debt _with the mob, _he got into fights, drank too much. The tragedy probably is, all he wanted was to keep us safe, give us a better life. Things just never worked out for him. The harder he tried, the worse it got."

And she, on the other hand, she had thought she'd found her true love at fifteen and ran away with him. Her mother had insisted she'd get an education and stop hanging out with a member of biker gang. So she'd left, like teenagers do. "It turns out, mothers sometimes know what they're talking about," Donna said, smiling sadly. "After two weeks, I was heartbroken and alone and, yeah, _broke. _I got work as a waitress. It was a Club-owned bar, but I didn't know that then."

Neither of their histories had a happy ending, but they knew that part already and there seemed no real point in saying it aloud. The wine was good, though, and so was the food.

"If you ran with the gangs," she said at some point. "Maybe we've met before."

"Or maybe I'd already stopped running with gangs by the time you were born."

In the end, the waiter appeared at their table with the bill and an earnest-faced offer to call them a cab. He glanced over the wine bottles on the table, somewhat pointedly when the question seemed to take Aiden by surprise. He didn't _seem _drunk, but that wasn't the point.

"Yes," Donna said. "Thank you."

The waiter withdrew and Aiden gave her slow grin.

"I thought I was supposed to steal you a car," he said.

Considering how he'd already picked her up with a Magnate once, the fact that he'd picked her up today in a far more mundane car hadn't escaped her. So he'd offered to steal her a better one on the way home. She hadn't been sure if he had been joking. Besides, back in the day, she'd have been perfectly capable of stealing her own car. Modern safety features, however, might present a problem.

It was cool outside the restaurant, still early in spring and the cold crept back in with sundown, but Donna stopped and put her head back, took a deep breath, even though they were in the middle of the city and beside an almost clogged city street. It felt good, but she didn't quite know why.

She opened her eyes again and looked back at Aiden. Smiling, acting less on impulse than the first time she'd put the moves on him, she picked up his unresisting hand and wrapped it around her waist.

"I'm supposed to be reformed," she said, somewhat belatedly, to the possibility of stealing a car. "I'm a _consultant_ for the CPD."

"I see," he said, leaning into her a little for emphasis. "You're really trying to arrest me."

Waiting for the cab, they walked a few leisurely steps along the sidewalk.

"I'll bring my handcuffs next time," she smirked.

"But the high security ones," he added. "The others aren't much of a challenge."

His phone gave a low beep and he stopped. She felt the tension in his body as he pulled the phone out.

"Someone's calling the cops," he said. He held the phone out in front of them, turning up the volume.

_"Hello? Shit! I think he's here! The vigilante's right here! I can see him!"_

Staring down on the phone, Aiden turned slowly on his heel and she swung with him rather than let go.

"Across the street," he said. She followed his gaze and saw a man stand in a doorway with phone at his ear, staring back at them. Even at the distance, she could see the sudden panic on his face when his gaze connected with Aiden's.

_"… oh shit shit shit, I think he's seen me! What do I do? What do I do?!"_

_"Sir, please remain calm, ctOS has eyes on you. You are not in immediate danger. Police will be with you shortly."_

"What do we do?" Donna asked.

"Stay close," Aiden suggested calmly. "You can't be identified while you're within range of my scrambler. Unfortunately, by now it's real people looking at the feeds. They can't see us, but they can see the pixillation."

With a slight smile, Aiden bent his head towards the caller, who flinched and tried to pull back into the shadows of the doorway.

Aiden said, "I'm afraid you're stuck with me until we get to a blind spot. Unless you'd rather take your chances with your friends at CPD?"

She contemplated it, but not seriously. It'd be the third time her name cropped up in connection to the vigilante, perhaps not often enough to confirm anything, but more than enough to suspect a pattern and make her colleagues look a little closer at her activities. She'd be damned if she was going to spent her newly gained freedom under such close scrutiny.

"No," she said. "You're stuck with _me." _

The first siren made itself heard above the backdrop noise of the traffic. Aiden scanned the street up and down for a moment, then tucked her along to a sleek, black car. It unlocked to a flash of its headlights. Aiden stepped out of her grip, opened the door for her with a quick, ironic smile. He slammed the door closed and hurried around the car.

Through the mirrors, Donna tracked him, spotted the first police cruiser as it turned into the street, thick traffic hampering its advance despite the siren and flashing lights.

Aiden tapped his phone as he got in the car, but put it away once the screen in the car's centre stack had picked up the phone's interface. A map of their surroundings and even as Donna watched, several threatening red dots appeared on the screen. Police radio came in over the speakers, distorted and confusing, but more than enough to reveal not just where everyone was, but where everyone was going.

"Buckle up," Aiden said, but it was the only warning she got and he didn't give her time to comply.

He got the car out of the parking spot with quick, precise movement, veered into traffic in a far too small gap. The tyres of the car behind them screamed as its driver hit the brakes. Donna held on tight, but the car was expensive, even speed and the harsh way Aiden took it around corners barely translated into anything other than a push and pull in her throat.

It was hard to tell just how close everything was, just how badly this could go south, just how much damage their expensive car would take in a head-on collision, but it was _near misses _all around. Aiden wove through traffic, using all lanes and the police lagging behind, getting caught in accidents caused by the other drivers confused reaction.

Donna stole a quick look at the map and the police were trying to surround them, take them from all directions and the chatter confirmed it. And there it was, a police cruiser cut around the corner of a crossroads just ahead of them.

"Hold tight," Aiden warned, but there wasn't much more she could do, really. With some effort, she took her attention away from the police car and studied his face, what she could make out, anyway. He seemed calm, concentrated, casual enough with just one hand on the steering wheel while his other hand hovered over the touchscreen.

She braced herself, saw Aiden flick a finger over the screen and tore the car sharply to the right at the same time.

The street ripped open under the pressure of a ruptured steam pipe, it picked up the cars and pieces of concrete, tossed them around like toys, threw them into nearby buildings and each other. Over the radio, there was surprised screaming and the sound of breaking metal.

Despite Aiden's evasion, the shockwave still got them, steam closing down the windshield and they scratched past a building before Aiden got the car back on the street.

Chaos filled the rear-view mirror, even the cars not caught in the immediate blast radius had stopped messily and at random, completely blocking off the street, trapping the rest of the police cruisers behind them.

Aiden slowed down just a bit, took quick turns through a series of side streets until there was no police cruisers marked on the map anymore. According to the chatter, they had lost track of them.

Aiden glanced at her briefly.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Well, you got me that car," she said. "Even if I probably can't keep it."

She thought of the people caught in the crashes behind them, wondered how badly they'd been hurt, never mind the money it would cost to repair the pipe and the street, all the damaged cars and other city structure.

She didn't understand why it was necessary to hound Aiden quite this much. She was aware of the unease of law enforcement, of course, she spoke with them everyday, after all. A vigilante was problematic for many reasons, she _understood_ — even if she didn't agree — why they needed him caught and off the streets. Whether it was worth it, she wasn't so sure.

"I could let you…" he began but couldn't finish the offer. "Shit," he muttered.

"We aren't out of it, yet," he pointed out and as if on cue, a helicopter suddenly dipped down right in front of them between the skyscrapers and the message came through the other chatter clear as day, sounding somewhat self-satisfied. _"Target reacquired!" _

Aiden dropped his right hand from the screen down to the handbrake, tore the steering wheel to the side and the car made a perfect U-turn and sped down the street. His hand returned to the screen, hit one of the buttons and the helicopter suddenly shook unsteadily, it's lights flickering.

"What…?" Donna said, despite herself.

"Don't worry," Aiden assured her. "It's not dangerous if the pilot knows his job."

She kept it in sight as well she could, hanging there precariously between the skyscrapers, wobbling, too close to the reflective surfaces of the buildings. Below it, two police cruisers overtook the slower traffic on two sides, one scraping over the sidewalk and tearing along the edge of a bus stop shelter and shattering its glass.

Another turn took both the helicopter and the police cruisers out of sight for barely a moment before they were on them again.

As if in slow motion, she saw one of the cops lean out of the window of the car.

"Are they _shooting?" _she asked, unnecessarily, because by the time she'd finished the question, the first bullet hit the trunk.

"Yeah," Aiden said, zig-zagged the car as more bullets came their way. "But it's only for the tyres, not trying to hit us. Yet."

She snapped her head around at his tone, watched his face again. The calm concentration was falling away even as she watched, replaced by a focussed intensity . She had seen hints of it, flashes, in the car after the Indigo State, something in his eyes after he'd taken down the woman in her apartment. She wasn't sure…

She didn't get to finish the thought.

Aiden hit the brakes hard, yanked the wheel and brought the car into an enclosed parking lot, it's closed barrier shattered over the hood and wiped over the windshield.

"I like this part," Aiden announced, tapped the screen and behind them, two police cruisers smashed into the boulders that shot up at the entrance of the parking lot. One of the sirens gave a pitiful yowl, than tapered off into silence. Smoke engulfed the deformed cars, too much to see whether their occupants got out alive or not.

If _she _got out alive, she could check after the weekend, but perhaps she didn't really want to know. Was knowing worse than her guess? She could at least tell herself the airbags had engaged in those cars and help would have been right there. If she preferred, she could just believe that story and it'd be true in a way.

The helicopter swerved back in sight as they crossed the parking lot, broke through the wire fence and out on the other side. Aiden forced their car through the parked cars there, back into the traffic as if he _knew _everyone was going to brake for him. As it was, the other cars _did _try to avoid them, some wasting time on honking or flashing lights before they cleared the street anyway. Nevertheless, they sheared past another car and for a moment, Donna saw the wide-eyed shock of the other driver as the sparks flew between them and the metal screamed.

They were under an L-track now, hidden from the helicopter and once Aiden had boxed his way through the small pileup he had caused the road seemed clear, despite the sirens audible everywhere. The helicopter pilot complained through the radio, announced he was circling, he knew where he'd lost the target, after all.

"Watch this," Aiden said and the amusement was finally obvious.

He brought the car between the lanes, just enough space to squeeze through if all the other cars behaved. He flicked another button and hit the gas.

The acceleration pushed her back in her seat, eyes going wide. The straight road ahead of them, as far as she could see, the traffic lights turned green. Aiden raced the car at full speed in between the slower cars, the engine roared, more than it had done earlier. Perhaps a stray bullet had damaged something, or perhaps she was only now listening to it.

"Rear-view," Aiden suggested smugly.

She looked in the mirror and behind them, the traffic lights had began to dance like overzealous Christmas lights and the cars with confused and overwhelmed drivers crashed into each other, choking the street for any pursuer.

Aiden slowed down only marginally before he took a sharp right turn to where one of the bridges was raised just ahead of them.

_"I got sight of him ag…" _came over the radio, broken up when the helicopter was again hacked, shivering uncertainly and tipping to the side and behind a building.

The bridge began to lower and Donna realised they were not going to wait until it was down. Aiden just sped up, past the other waiting cars and the slowly moving bridge was a steep ramp, slowing even the powerful car more than Donna had expected.

The car shot over the end of the bridge and it felt like they hung in the air for a long minute, as if gravity itself had stopped while in reality, of course, they were flying for only a handful of seconds. Enough time for Aiden to tap another button, but Donna registered it only distantly.

They landed hard. The bridge had began to raise again while they were above it and it was just as steep on the other side, the car's back wheels lost contact with the ground and for the first time, Aiden put both hands to the wheel, wrestling back his control. The car broke out and turned as it suddenly got all wheels back on the ground at the bottom of the bridge.

The front right tyre blew with a sharp snap, the car sagged suddenly and rotated to a halt in a mess of scratched metal and overheated rubber. A thin line of smoke curled upward from the front of the car.

Aiden watched it, then dismissed it with a shrug.

"Donna?" he asked as he tilted his head in her direction. "Still breathing?"

In that moment, she was hard pressed to figure out the answer to the question, so she said exactly that.

"I'm not sure," and it came out breathless enough.

It was, she decided later, only fair. He put his hand to the side of her face, a lazy stroke of his fingers along her jaw and bent towards her, kissed her, just a touch of his lips at first, than a slow slide of his tongue until she leaned into him.

The kiss stole what air she still had in her lungs, made her both melt and feel heat crawl up her spine and shoot back down her body. It was Aiden who shifted back, though smiling and she had to resist the urge to just recapture his lips and keep going, as if they hadn't just crash-landed in the middle of a busy city street during the tail end of a police chase.

"So…" he said quietly. "Best or worst first date ever?"

She laughed. "I don't know," she said faintly. "Is it already over?"

He smirked and the expression turned sinister when suddenly the entire district was plunged into darkness and all that remained was the glare of headlights, cutting through their car from all sides.

"Okay," Aiden said. "Let's go then."

Both their doors were jammed. She kicked hers open before Aiden had a chance to round the car, but he caught her hand and helped her to her feet.

"This way," he said and pulled her along through the stopped cars.

The helicopter was back, circling high above, aimlessly searching and adding just one more bright light to all the others, too eratic to illuminate anything much at all.

Aiden led her away from the main street and into a labyrinth of back alleys. He must be navigating all of this by intuition rather than sight, because the faint light from his phone barely reached past their feet.

"Better now?" he asked when he slowed down finally. The lights came on reluctantly, slipped back over piles of trash and other backstreet debris. A rat scurried away, surprised by the light and the two people intruding on its territory.

"What?"

"Breathing."

He was still holding her hand and she squeezed it, held on to him so he didn't get away again as she moved close, wrapped his arm around her waist again, the way she had earlier.

"Getting there," she chuckled.

"That wasn't the plan, by the way," he said. "I didn't think anyone would recognise me."

"Well, _I _wouldn't have recognised you," she told him. "In a suit and without a gun."

They strode together and eventually, the back alley opened up to another city street. This one had clearly not suffered, traffic slipped past peacefully enough, except for the occasional honking or cursing driver. Party-goers filled the sidewalk and took them within their crowd without a hitch and this time, what attention they attracted was harmless, a passing assessment of just another couple.

Her mind settled slowly, slower than her heartbeat and her breathing, both of which had gone back to normal. She was grateful he didn't say anything, gave her that space. Perhaps he understood things better than she gave him credit for.

It wasn't that she didn't know what she wanted. The opposite, in fact, but seducing Aiden Pearce was proving to be more of an adventure than she had anticipated.

"You know," she said. "I learned something recently."

She felt his gaze, searching her face, but she looked straight ahead rather than meet it.

He said nothing and she continued, "I learned that certain games are a waste of time. You never know whether you'll get another chance."

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is, I don't think I want to sit in a cab by your side without touching. I don't want to play 'do you want to come up for coffee'. I don't have time for that."

"What do you want?"

"You," she said, simply and, although her voice and mind were both steady, she felt her cheeks heat up. "Without any games."

She was close enough to feel his posture change, just slightly. His hand shifted and for a moment she thought he was going to let go of her, be the gentleman he pretended to be when the lights were on.

Instead, he tugged her gently, steered her in another direction.

"Alright," he said. "No games."

* * *

_End of _Nightcall: Flashpoint – Part 1_

* * *

**Revised on 05/June2015**


	17. Nightcall: Flashpoint - Part 2

**Warning: **Too wordy sex between consenting adults.

**Author's Note: **While this _seems _like it can be safely skipped, there are bits of characterisation scattered throughout. Mostly Poppy, but there's stuff on Aiden, too, though his is less obvious. Very little is accidental.

I think I've never written this much explicit stuff. It put an incredible strain on my vocabulary. Appreciate it, dammit!

**Fun with Statistics: **Aiden is almost certainly uncircumcised.

* * *

_**Nightcall: Flashpoint – Part 2**

* * *

_The fight gets to you sometimes, _Aiden had said on the phone. Easily, dismissively, maybe he'd been in that place so many times, it didn't register anymore for him. If it was true for fights, it must be true for car chases, too. Part of her was surprised they even made it to the hotel room, after the truth was out, like a deal made and sealed. Part of her was surprised they even made it to the _elevator. _

They kissed, hard and sharp, the first _real _kiss, without any stunned immobility in either of them, without any reservations left. It hadn't really registered with her just how tall he was, how broad, before he pushed her into the wall, just inside the still dark room. In a moment of clarity, she still saw the bright light from the hallway, outlining the door where it hadn't fallen closed completely. She saw it and the thought fled.

Aiden wrapped both hands around her waist, pulled her hips from the wall and against him, towering over her and stealing all control of the kiss from her. All she could do, all she could _think_ of doing, was to fist her hands into the fine cloth of his jacket, pulling and tearing at it uselessly.

He somehow managed to shrug the jacket off without taking his hands from her for more than a second, but let go of her mouth. He painted a wet trail along her jaw, bit the skin just below her ear.

"You'll have to tell me to stop," he growled darkly.

It seemed like a ridiculous idea, but she was too short of breath to articulate it. She turned her head, instead, sharply, and caught his mouth again. Not a kiss this time, more a bite in her haste, shearing into his lower lip and he gasped. She sunk her nails into his neck, the only part of bare skin she could reach, and slung one leg around his waist. Her dress rode up her thighs and cut into her flesh when there wasn't quite enough give in the material.

She wriggled her hips, trying to get it out of the way. There were still too many clothes on both of them anyway, she decided, let his mouth go free and leaned her head back. The movement was a little too hard, or the wall was closer than she'd anticipated and the sudden pain shook her awake. Or _wider _awake, she wasn't certain, acutely aware of everything around her. The sting of her dress, the indistinct pressure of Aiden's hips between her legs, the cool of the drying saliva along her neck, the way the hastily drawn breath cut past her teeth.

It was too dark to see the details of his face, so she just had to _know _that his eyes were an intense green, though his pupils would be blown so wide, she wouldn't be able to see it even with the lights on. They were still in that moment, just a heartbeat, looking for confirmation perhaps, a connection beyond naked lust. It didn't last, she didn't have the patience to let it and it had been so long since she'd been with anyone she cared about, with anyone she really wanted.

She tightened her hold on his neck, spread her fingers out through his hair and pulled his head down for another kiss, she couldn't get enough of it, like it was a contest she couldn't back out of until she won.

Aiden slipped one hand down her thigh, pushed the skirt up and finally she was free to move. She pulled her leg higher and ground her pelvis into his.

While she was quite content just mindlessly rutting against him, Aiden seemed capable of several simultaneous things, each one making her breathe faster and grind harder. He got to the zipper at the back of her dress and pulled it open all the way down to her arse, unhooking her bra as he went, his kiss never stuttered. The straps slipped down her arms as far as they could go.

Blindly, she fingered for the collar of his shirt, fingers too tense and eager to do more than pull at the buttons there. She hissed in frustration and it sounded animalistic in her own ears. She didn't care, she was too eager to wait any longer.

"Get that off," she demanded, fingers tight in his shirt. He followed her order perfectly, unbuttoning the shirt with predictable efficiency, slipping it over his head when he had enough room, tousling his hair worse than her earlier attack had left it.

She leaned away from him for a moment, enough space to watch him. She had seen enough of him, out on the street, in Chicago PD's coveted vigilante videos, to know just how fit he was, because if he weren't, most of the stunts on those videos would have made him an embarrassment on the first try and killed him on the second.

Hurriedly, she pulled on the straps of her dress and slipped it, along with her bra, from her shoulders, moved her body sinuously until the dress finally passed her hips and pooled around her feet.

She reached for him, hooked her finger into the waistband of his trousers and pulled him close, finally getting eager hands on him, tracing the finely chiselled muscles up his chest as if she was blind and needed to map him in his entirety with her fingertips. She wrapped an arm around his neck, stepped in close again and pressed her body to his, moaning in anticipation even before they connected. She thought he smelled of thunder, charged and electrifying.

There was just enough give in the waistband of his trousers to slip her hand inside and grope him shamelessly. It got him to groan and sway on his feet, leaning into her before he steadied himself and it was an addictive thrill all its own just to see that reaction. He wrapped an arm around her back, traced down her spine and she shivered, nerves standing on edge under his touch.

He put a hand to her chin, deftly lifted her face up to kiss her again with the same consuming ferocity of before, the same practised dominance that made her want to melt into his arms.

His other hand pushed past her panties, cupped her arse and used the leverage to pull her back against him. It crushed the hand she had down his trousers, made them both hiss and growl, but not stop. She got her hand free, but only so she could get the fly open.

"Aiden…" she started. "I've got condoms in my bag…"

"I haven't the slightest where it is," he chuckled. She felt one of his hands leave her body briefly and then he held out a small packet in front of her. "But you can rely on me."

"So," she teased. "You thought you'd get lucky, huh?"

"That makes two of us, doesn't it?"

She grinned at that, but quick and lost again, because anticipation was already tipping down and sideways and she felt she was going to burst if she had to wait any longer. She let go of him and snapped her hands back to herself, watching with greedy eyes as he rolled the condom on. She felt his gaze on her face, stroking his own flesh, unabashed.

She bared her teeth in a grin and _pounced_. She wrapped both her legs around him, feeling herself open up. Her wet fingers left damp lines on his neck and along his jaw as she gripped his face.

He'd caught her easily, found his balance with half a step back under the impact. He dug his fingers into her thighs and hoisted her higher. The muscles in her legs strained under the effort, she didn't want to be suspended over _nothing, _she didn't want to be open and wet and deprived of stimulation.

She mewled, kissed him fiercely, too sloppy to make it last. But it was only a second. Aiden crushed her back into the wall, gave her something else to arch off of, the rough texture sticking to her slowly sweat-slickening skin. He let go with one arm, bent lower and slung first one, than her other leg over his arms. She felt his clever fingers below and then he pressed inside her.

She bit his tongue, choking on a pleased whine. Aiden shook his head free, throat bared away from her and his face was close enough now, glittering eyes and parted lips. He watching her face, the emotions as they carved themselves into her expression. He rolled his hips, slowly at first, but picking up speed and force with each cascading moan it drove from her.

She was deliciously trapped between the hard wall and Aiden's unyielding body, ramming into her, taking her over. She canted her hips forward, meeting his thrusts and the entire length of his body rubbed against her with each shift and jolt of either of them.

Everything was hot, too hard, soaked through with sweat from the exertion. The pleasure rolled over her, much too fast and too soon, it stole her breath, gasping soundlessly. Aiden pressed his cheek to hers, a wanton groan in her ear. Impossible as it seemed, he managed to drive himself into her even harder, faster, she felt the way his rhythm stuttered.

She'd have loved to see his face, but she had her own face buried in the nape of his neck, clawing into his back, no doubt leaving angry red welts on his skin there as she tried to climb higher.

"Don't stop," she pleaded. "Don't stop."

He didn't, even if his body felt so tense she wouldn't have been surprised if he shattered into pieces under her fingers, just fell apart on her. But she'd been so close to the edge from the start, from the moment in the car, from the moment _in her apartment, _he didn't have to torment himself for much longer.

Her body locked up, suddenly, the wave crashing from one moment to the next, leaving her light-headed and her body out of her control, clenching and spasming, nerve ends all alight and leaving her body boneless in its wake. It tore an oddly high-pitched moan from Aiden's deep voice, his hips jerking back sharply once she relaxed enough to let him go.

He leaned in over her, as if seeking the support of the wall to keep them both up. He pushed one of her legs up so it hung over his shoulder. She wasn't sure her legs would support her if they toppled over.

"Donna," Aiden said and he sounded both out of breath and grinning.

She blinked at the sound of her name, trying to focus. He caught her gaze and dragged it along with his to the side.

The room was still mostly in darkness, but to the right of them, the door was still a black square outlined by stripes of brightness. It took a moment until the haze in her mind allowed her to figure out the significance.

Carefully shifting her weight to his other arm, Aiden reached out and gave the door a slight shove, enough to make it fall closed, swallowing the light.

"Shit," she whispered. "It was open all the time?"

She looked back at Aiden, met his gaze in the darkness, saw just enough to make out the amusement in the curl of his lips. She started to laugh, it just came over her, folding her face back into his shoulder, her body shaking. It helped relax her legs and Aiden lowered her gently.

She was still laughing. After a little moment, he joined in.

* * *

The room was a blur, lost at the edges of her perception, inconsequential in the larger scheme of things. Vaguely, she realised the sheets on the bed were smooth and slippery and the bed itself was large and welcoming, like a perfect playground. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, and she was no longer willing to let herself be startled by anything Aiden did, he had a way of thinking things through, more than anyone else she'd ever met.

He had a way with reading her body, too, it seemed, in a casual and irreverent way that would be insulting from anyone else. With him, it was just exciting, a part of his allure. She wasn't sure if she bought into the legend of him, that urban myth within the streets of Chicago, but she couldn't deny that it made for the better fantasy in her head to complement the real physicality of the here and now.

She clawed her fingers into the blankets, flexing her back and shaking her arse in the moment before he sheathed himself inside her again. She bucked back against him immediately, sucked in her breath sharply, whimpered his name.

Aiden slid his arm around her, up between her breasts and wrapped his fingers delicately around her throat, pulled her up sharply, straining her back in an arch.

"C'mon," he rumbled by her head. "Don't fake it."

She wasn't…

…or she _was _and it was survival instinct, deeply ingrained habit and it tore her from the moment like a splash of cold water. The last thing she wanted to think about, the one truth she didn't want to face, not now and not later, either. In this instant, the feeling of flesh had nothing enticing, nothing she wanted despite the remnant tingling in her nerves where he touched her.

She needed to get _back _to where she was before, because the thought of losing this, now, in the middle of everything was unbearable in all possible ways. Aiden couldn't see her face, or just a little of it and because she felt his teeth, she knew he was too close anyway.

"How?" she breathed, pushing back against him still, because the sparks were still there and her body didn't ask permission before it moved. She just needed to get back to the point of ignition.

Aiden chuckled, low. "Done this before," he said. "And I haven't really started."

And there it was, the fire she'd so briefly lost, when he got his hand under her and his fingers down between her legs. She lurched forward, driving her own throat into his other hand and her voice cracked and broke. She couldn't think straight, just rutted back against him, mindlessly and so hard she wasn't sure if the pleasure would break into pain and shatter her.

She curled her hips away from him, back arching up like an angry cat's. Each hard thrust shifted them across the bed, the smooth cloth offering no hold for her, nothing to help balance against every hard push.

She hissed in frustration when he took his hand away from her, left her exposed, unsatisfied and still straining, wrapped too wide around him.

Aiden covered her, she felt his lips on her upper back, on her neck, teeth grazing her tingling skin and making her shiver. She turned her head, caught his fingers between her teeth and swiped her tongue over them. With her mouth open, it was far easier for sounds to escape her, spill from her lips, firmly beyond her control.

She stuttered his name and felt him shift his weight behind her and his free hand found her arm, closed around her wrist and pulled her loose and she tumbled forward, yelping as his angle inside her suddenly changed. He closed that hand on the side of her hip, held on so hard she felt the pressure down to her bones.

He picked up power, she heard his voice close by her ear, sandpaper rough in the rhythm of each thrust.

Her freed hand found its way down her body of its own accord and she wailed and shivered under her own touch, at the feeling of him moving inside, chanting his name in some spiritual mantra.

She lost whatever train of thought she had, her existence reduced to pure sensation, just flesh, damp and shaking and complaining muscles. She couldn't pay attention to him beyond where he touched her and how he played her, the sound of him by her ear.

She sensed them synchronise, distantly, but it didn't seem to matter, her fingers working furiously and all the other points of feeling, too much and too strong and too hard, until it made her body seize up, white-light heat traveling through it, consuming and devastating and so far beyond amazing she couldn't remember his name even though she was still whimpering it to herself. She couldn't remember _her own _name or why it mattered at all.

Spasms ran through her, prolonged with each hard thrust, with each moan of his, each flexing of his fingers on her throat.

Her strength left her, flowed away and she crumpled under his weight, flat on the sheets, still shivering in aftershocks when Aiden snarled and let go of her, his hands leaving her and exposing her to the unfeeling air around them.

She felt his grip on her ankle, moved with him mindlessly as he turned her around and splayed her legs on either side of his hips. She slipped down on the bed until she was almost close enough for him to enter her again, but when he didn't, she used her fingers instead.

"Do that again," she demanded, sprawled out before him and feeling the force of her own heartbeat in her chest.

"Give me a few minutes," he said. He sat back, kneeling between her legs. She watched avidly as he slipped the sloppy condom off and tossed it aside, somewhere on the floor, out of sight, out of mind. But he leaned forward again, joined his fingers to her inside her own body and kissed her panting, open mouth.

* * *

She couldn't sleep.

At her side, Aiden was snoring and for a little while, listening to him, she thought she just wasn't used to the presence of another person anymore. She poked and prodded him a little in the side and was almost disappointed when he didn't show any sort of predator lightning reflexes. Instead he seemed to barely wake, grunted something inaudible and rolled to his side. His breathing was quiet after that, depriving her of the easy explanation she had hoped it to be.

She still couldn't sleep. Suspended in a kind of timelessness, she lay on her back and stared at the ceiling until her eyes had adjusted to the glittering light of the cityscape outside the window and she could see the exact shape of the lamp above and when her gaze trailed down, the outline of the baroque mirror on the wall across the bed, angled back toward it, but it remained too dark to make out more than a bulk of shadows.

For a time, she dwelled on the thought. How she actually hadn't noticed the mirror before, despite how it had been placed, despite its frivolous invitation to _watch. _

But there was only so much she could think about it, before her thoughts drifted in another direction and quite suddenly, laying still just seemed unbearable.

She rolled to her feet silently and stood by the bed in indecision. Aiden's breathing was still slow, still fast asleep. Clearly not a man who trusted easily, but there he was, sleeping as if there wasn't a city full of people out to kill him.

She walked past the bed, to where the minibar was. She closed her eyes when she opened its door, she didn't want to see right then, as if this was a spell she'd disturb if she did and although she might be better off, she couldn't do it. She groped in the fridge, picked a bottle at random and took it with her to an armchair by the window. From there, she could see out over the city, hardly sleeping but she was so high above it all, it didn't seem to matter.

It didn't make sense to her. She felt good, her limbs were leaden and a little bit like jelly, her entire body felt just the right kind of sore.

She unscrewed the bottle and took a sip, grimaced when the sweet liquid travelled down her throat, almost too much to swallow and she coughed. Vile stuff, she should have looked after all. Some kind of liqueur, hints of fire in the wake of the sweetness. At least _some _alcohol, for whatever good that would do.

The point was, and she supposed she could sit here like a pariah in the darkness until morning came, _the point was_, she knew exactly where the problem was. All she lacked was the courage to finish the thought rather than slap it away at the first opportunity. Like a threat, only realised the moment she looked at it directly.

The point was… she had picked Aiden for herself, whatever dubious reasons for it there might be lurking somewhere in her subconsciousness. _Her _choice, but there had been moments, when a touch or a sound had thrown her from the present and back, a flash of memory drowning her, of all the men and their games, who _hadn't _been her choice.

They remained nameless, because she had never bothered trying to remember their names and she'd avoided looking at their faces, so she didn't know those either. And that's all she had, now, all the memory of it, all messed up in her head, carefully hidden away where she had hoped it would stay forever.

She had thought she had done well in the months since. There'd been no nightmares, no insecurities, no _change _to her personality she could discern. But there she was, in the darkness and cradling a bottle of alcohol she didn't like instead of sleeping as soundly as her lover did — who surely had enough demons of his own to keep him up.

She took another sip from the bottle, grimaced at the taste and put it back, cradling against her breast until the glass had warmed. The room was cool, but not uncomfortable, it could be minutes, or an hour already. She felt tired, but not sleepy enough to go back to the bed.

She took a deep breath instead, blinked in the darkness and watched the glittering lights of the city outside the window. It was quite a pretty sight, after all.

A slight turn of her head would mean she could read the faintly illuminated digits on the television. Enough to know how late it was, or to judge how long she'd already sat there. She thought of it when she heard Aiden stir, a low rustle of blankets and the slightest groan from the mattress as he sat up.

Without looking at him, she felt his gaze rest on her, huddled in her armchair. She waited, she had the impression they _both _waited, but she couldn't think of anything to say and he was silent, too.

After a moment, he got to his feet and padded to bathroom. Light spilled into the room behind her, too quick and sharp for her eyes too adjust, not bright enough so she had to see her reflection in the window before he closed the door and the light was gone.

She didn't need to look to map his movement behind her. Flush of the toilet, then another flare of light, the click of a switch and back into darkness, bare feet on the carpet. He opened the minibar, but unlike her, he seemed to actually look at what he was taking. The minibar was closed and after another moment, she heard the faint hiss of an uncapped bottle.

Despite herself, despite not moving her head, she had slanted her eyes downward, enough to bring him into her peripheral vision as he returned to the bed. Nothing more than a dark shadow with indistinct movements.

For some reason, she felt relieved, as if she had been afraid he'd approach her.

They sat and drank in silence, but it was a heavy thing, this silence, growing and spreading until it filled the entire room. It made her throat constrict, still looking for the words, any words really, something to make the silence go away. She shifted in her seat, clutched her bottle.

It had become impossible to concentrate on the city lights outside.

Another man would have cleared his throat before he spoke, he would have at least acknowledged he shared her discomfort in some way, but Aiden just said, "Are you alright?"

"Why do you keep asking me that?"

"You don't seem alright."

She heard him move again, but she couldn't tell what he was doing.

"Do you want me to leave?" he asked and she realised she hadn't said anything more. There was no reason why he _shouldn't _think she was hurt, that _he _had hurt her and perhaps he'd been afraid he'd do exactly that when he'd tried to push her away in the very beginning.

"No," she said, because she knew if she said nothing, he would take it as confirmation of everything he thought. She didn't like the thought, it would be a disappointing end to an extraordinary evening and night. It would give all the faceless men in the Infinite 92 too much power. It would mean Lucky Quinn and Iraq's meddling could reach her even from beyond the grave.

"No, stay," she said again, just in case he hadn't believed her the first time.

He moved again and she hoped it was to settle himself back on the bed. The sheets rustled again. For the second time that night, she was surprised at her own relief.

She put her bottle to her mouth, but stopped herself at the last minute. She laughed a little, put her head back and let her eyes fall closed momentarily.

"I should have checked the bottles," she said. "What are you having?"

"Import lager."

She finally gave up, she had enough of this brooding, enough of this bad alcohol and this self-imposed exile from the bed. Her legs had cramped under her and she felt stiff as she got up, put the bottle away. With her back to the window, the bed and Aiden's shape was the same uniform dark it had been before. It didn't seem so empty, though, now that he was awake in it.

He started to scoot away as she leaned over the bed, but she reached for him in the dark, blind but fast enough to catch his shoulder and he stilled. She settled her knee on the bed, felt the mattress dip under her weight. She traced her way up from his shoulder until she held his head, gripping his hair maybe a little harder than necessary.

She found his mouth again, kissed him slowly and tasted the beer on his tongue. She pulled back, swiped her tongue over his parted lips.

"Not bad," she said, thoughtfully. "For beer."

"No one appreciates the finer things," he said, sadly mocking. She was glad he followed her lead, let the moment go before she lost herself in it.

Taking another, steadying breath, trying to get rid of the last traces, she settled on the bed, close enough to feel the warmth of his body. She made a little purring sound when he slowly stroked his way down her flank, just the fingertips, following the curve of her body.

She said, "Turn on the lights."

There was hesitation, almost imperceptible, but she could sense it. He took too long before he rolled to his back and stretched out over the bed, reaching for the switch by the nightstand. She narrowed her eyes in anticipation of the glare, but the lamps by the bed only shed a soft, golden light. It barely stung and it didn't blind her. Indeed, with the lights on, all her dark thoughts seemed banished, or at least pushed back to the sidelines and out into the cold. She could deal with them some other time.

There was an old tattoo on the side of his torso, something blue and red, but too faded to make out its motif, drawn out along the muscles there, shifting with the regularity of his breathing.

She could feel the wicked expression as it plastered itself over her face. She felt it and she didn't mind, because if she had to distract herself, she couldn't think of a better way. Pushing herself back up from where she'd been about to lie down, she flung her leg over him and levered herself up, riding up over his hips and tensing her thighs before he could get any ideas about reversing the position.

A part of the silky blanket, halfway wrapped around him and still not completely loose, had managed to get caught between them. She'd take care of that in a minute, but for the now, the thin barrier was oddly enticing, touch that wasn't _quite _as good as it was going to be.

"I know, I know," she laughed, settled back, shifting her weight until their bodies aligned. "You like being on top."

"Preference, not principle," Aiden said. One of his arms was still hanging over the edge, from where he'd switched on the lights. He tucked it under his neck as he spoke, smugly comfortable. She began to rock back and forth, a slow grind of her hips.

"And I can't argue with the view," he added, voice falling into something breathier at the end. He kept his gaze fixed on her face, almost in defiance of his words, only when she laughed again did he trail it down her body and the weight of that gaze felt almost like an actual touch.

She raked her hands down his chest and he arched into it, the muscles in his stomach twitched and she felt him tense between her thighs. She kept grinding down, but slipped her hands over her own body, getting lost in her own motion. Heat prickled down her body, pooled low between her legs, slowly soaking the sheet between them.

She didn't realise she had closed her eyes until she opened them again. Aiden's gaze was still rapt on her, but he seemed content to just watch her perform, even if his arousal was unmistakable.

"Enjoying yourself?" she asked grinning, leaned over him and flexed the muscles in her legs.

"What's it feel like?" he asked back.

She arched her eyebrows at him, riding higher and sliding her hands down her body, over her breasts and between her legs, gasping for breath as she began stroking herself.

He had more control than she had expected, more than what his body under her was telling her, but there was fever in his eyes, sizzling at the back of his gaze. For all her teasing, he managed to get her by surprise anyway, pushed himself up on his elbows and sat up. He yanked the damn sheet away and the shock of damp on solid skin tore a whimper from her throat. From him, too, but he turned it into a hungry laugh. He reached between them, stroked her, his dry thumb burned before he gathered some of her wetness.

"If you don't…" she groaned.

"If I don't _what?_" he asked, face pressed to the side of her neck, giving little licks down her chest. She felt him grinning against her skin. He didn't stop and she rocked her hips back against him, moaning, _"Fuck." _

Aiden chuckled. "Yeah, that's the idea. Where's your bag, I'm out."

Her rather mindless rocking stuttered to a slow halt, puzzled, she looked at him until it finally clicked in her mind. "I'm… I'm clean and I'm on birth control. You can probably check my medical records or something. So…"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure, it's on _you_ now."

Holding on to her waist with one arm, he kept her steady as he sat up fully and folded his legs under him.

"I'm not reading your medical records," he muttered. "And you've got nothing to worry about. C'mere."

It felt different than before, for many reasons other than a missing piece of rubber. Slower and closer, wrapped around each other and finding an new, matching rhythm. She shifted her hips while Aiden ground up into her until the angle was good and then the angle was _perfect_, spilling a moan from her lips and then tipped it into a cry.

* * *

She woke alone. She couldn't remember falling asleep but there she was. Chasing memories, she remembered Aiden's broad back pressed against her own, his steady breathing and his radiating heat. Solid and reliable to her as her mind struggled awake by slow increment.

It was strange that this should be her first thought, the thing she remembered most about that night, but perhaps it made sense. She'd been on her own for a very long time and lovers, no matter how good, they were transitory. But trust and faith, those were the rarer commodities and the more dangerous concepts.

She was sprawled on the wide bed, the sheets thankfully dry again, but tangled hopelessly throughout the night, still keeping her tied down.

When she finally sat up and surveyed the room, she spotted her clothes draped with some care over the back of the armchair by the window, where she'd sat in the night. Her phone was on her nightstand and a little letter symbol blinked patiently, begging demurely for her attention.

_**To:** Donna Dean_

_**From: **AP_

_**Message: **Didn't want to wake you, had to take care of a few things. Hotel is paid up till tomorrow, take your time._

It vanished as if it had never been after she'd read it. There was another message, though. She swiped her finger over the screen.

_**To: **Donna Dean_

_**From: **AP_

_**Message: **Call me._

Somehow, the fact that it was the only one of his messages, ever, that wasn't self-deleting made all the difference.

* * *

_End of _Nightcall: Flashpoint – Part 2_

* * *

**Author's 1****st** **Remark: **Just for the record, when Aiden implies he respects Donna's privacy ('not reading your medical records'), I feel like… _weeeell_, this is the same guy who keeps a camera in his sister's bedroom and then there is the entire shower-camera-thing in Dark Clouds. It's also the same guy who watches random people through their webcams just because he can… so, Aiden respecting your privacy is really worth shit.

**Author's 2****nd** **Remark: **_I've done this before, _Aiden says and… Aiden, as your designated author for the evening, I've watched you play hard to get for three solid chapters and I've seen two minor cop-outs in Dogtown and let me tell you, _I was beginning to have my doubts about that. _

**Author's Note: **Shit, I need a drink. Can I go back into my comfort zone now? Please?


	18. Nightcall No 2

**Author's Note:** Nightcall call chapters are numbered to echo the way audio logs in-game. They aren't meant to be the sum total of phone conversations between Aiden and Donna.

Nightcall chapters are in chronological order.

* * *

**_Nightcall #2**

* * *

"The hard question, Aiden. Will you ever answer?"

_"What was the question again?" _

"I don't believe for a second you don't remember."

_"I don't know what you want me to say, Donna. It's complicated. I'm not used to explaining myself." _

"That actually _wasn't _the question. I asked you what keeps you going. I still don't know. I've seen so much speculation on the news and online. I hear what the people at CPD talk about. It's all contradictory. It doesn't make sense."

_"You know me better than any of them." _

"No. Yes. But it's…"

_"Complicated?" _

"Why do you do what you do?"

_"How would I even stop?" _

"In the words of an addict."

_"In a way. I've thrown my life away a long time ago. I can't go back. I've put myself in a place where I'll forever be hunted. I'd have to run long and far to find peace and I wouldn't even know what to do with it, if I did." _

"What do you want?"

_"Nothing." _

"Liar."

_"Sometimes a better one than other times, apparently. I want… I want people to be decent to each other. I want cooperations to be honest and governments to remember who they're supposed to serve. I want the world tomorrow to be a better place than it is today. But I know that what I want and what I do don't always fit together." _

"You try."

_"You told me trying to make a difference and actually changing something for the better isn't the same thing. Do you really think I don't know the names of all the people whose life I've ruined? How many people I've killed at this point? I know, because ctOS remembers them all. Most of them deserved it, but what about their families? What about the innocents caught in the crossfire?" _

"If you really thought that, you'd stop."

_"If I had any kind of integrity. I care, you know that, but maybe I don't care _enough. _I'm not the solution and I'm not the hero, either." _

"You're still one of the good ones."

_"That's what you said about Iraq." _

"Do you keep a record of everything I ever said to you?"

_"Not like that, I simply pay attention. Iraq was a madman. I am… what I am. It's possible you're a terrible judge of character." _

"I guess it's good I know how to take a joke."

_"Donna… I don't have the answer you want." _

"What I want isn't important, I'm not the mark in a con. At least I hope I'm not…"

_"You aren't." _

"… so let me tell you something else about Iraq: Only madmen deal in certainties. You don't."

_"I deal in certainties all the time. Just not this one. And even this… It's just talk and talk is cheap." _

"Aiden…"

_"Donna, I know it sounds like a cop-out, but I have to hang up and take care of something. We'll talk." _

"Soon."

_"Soon."_

* * *

_End of _Nightcall #2_


	19. Black Sheep

**Warning:** Aiden Pearce is a vengeful arsehole.

**Recap**: Drago has been mentioned in Dogtown as the leader of the Dead Man Walking, the street gang Aiden was a member of. Tighe is briefly name-checked as friend of Aiden's.

* * *

[summary: 'happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' three episodes between 2002 and 2003.]

**_Black Sheep**

* * *

**March 2002_**

In the metallic-white light of the hospital, Kathleen Pearce looked like she had been carved from stone. After she had got up from the chair she had occupied while they had been waiting, she stood perfectly still, green gaze fixed on the doctor. She was taller than him, by a scant inch and raised a little higher on her heels. She looked back at the doctor until the man seemed to shrink in Nicole's perception. She still huddled in her own chair and felt as pale as the plastic she sat on. Her body ached as she sat up, only sluggishly following her orders.

The quiet beep and hiss of the machinery filled the background of the room, in perfect rhythm, but the longer Nicole listened to it, the more petrified she became, cold dread climbing up through her chest until she thought she would burst. She tried to blink it away, but it didn't work. When she opened her eyes again, she still saw her mother looking back at the doctor, holding herself like a statue.

The worst — by far the worst and there were some good contenders — was how well Nicole recalled the last time she had seen her mother face a doctor like that. Or a cop or a thug or a street worker, even the priest back in Belfast after she stopped going to church. It was like Kathleen could sheath herself in a layer of ice, impenetrable and in that state, there was no lie she could not tell, no truth that seemed capable to bent her knees.

Nicole realised she had zoned out at some point, the doctor's voice joining all the ticks and clicks of the machinery.

"…numerous inner lesions, broken ribs, but the lungs weren't punctured," the doctor said, glanced to the side. "I have no idea how he managed to have no other broken bones, sprained and cracked, but still keeping together. Some of the damage seems to be defensive, probably fought back and it didn't help." He looked back at Kathleen. "There's some damage to the spine and the hip bone. Head injuries are, well, with this type of injury the best we can do is wait for the swelling to go down and…"

Kathleen watched him. "And see how much of him is still there," she said, bare of any inflection.

The doctor took a moment to hide his surprise at her candid words. "If you will. Like I said, it's impossible to predict. But the prognosis is good otherwise. He's in good physical condition, young, nothing that won't heal."

He looked around again, his attention lingering on Nicole for a minute, pensively, before he looked back at Kathleen. "There's a police officer outside. Obviously, she isn't going to talk to your son today, or next week, but she wants to ask you a few question. This kind of escalation is rare, even for a gang hit, but it's still the most likely explanation. Does your son have any gang connections?"

Kathleen glanced away from the doctor and over Aiden's prone form. "I wouldn't know," she said. "I haven't seen him since Christmas."

"He cut his ties," Nicole interjected, somewhat sourly and more to her mother than the doctor.

She couldn't see her mother's face and the doctor merely nodded.

"I can tell the officer to come back later, if now is not a good time," the doctor offered.

"No, it's fine," Kathleen said. "Tell her to wait a minute, then we can talk."

The doctor nodded, "Of course. If there's something else you need, don't hesitate."

Another pause, he fidgeted again. "Someone will come and talk to you about the bill, but there's some time for that, too."

"Thank you," Kathleen said and she might as well have been a queen dismissing a minion.

The doctor dropped a few more gently encouraging words before he left. As the door gaped open, Nicole spotted the police uniform in the hallway outside, just the colours, too brief to make out a face at all.

When the doctor was gone, Kathleen slowly turned toward the bed and she seemed thoughtful as she regarded her son, emotions coming and going on her face that Nicole didn't have names for. She couldn't…

She couldn't _look_, Nicole thought, she had avoided it for what felt like hours, just listening to the machines, the artificial breathing, the feeble assurance that her brother was still alive. Of course she had _seen _him when she came in, but she'd avoided it after that. But because Kathleen was looking, she had to share in it.

"What happened?" she asked and it was such a stupid question, she would have cringed, if she could spare the energy.

"You heard what the doctor said," Kathleen said in the same voice she had used with the doctor. "A gang hit."

Nicole bit her lip before she said something she knew she'd regret later. It was the same voice and the same acid Kathleen had employed against her husband back in Belfast, the cold-eyed indifference that had become her last line of defence. Nicole had hated it, growing up, but she'd eventually understood why Kathleen had to do it, but this was _Aiden, _he didn't deserve it.

And there, she was looking at him, directly, though there wasn't much recognisable about him. Head shaved and stitched back together, both hidden behind bandages. Tubes down his throat and nose, kept in place by soft tape. The face was bruised and swollen almost beyond recognition. He looked like he had been caught in the middle of a car crash, but he hadn't.

"Mom…" Nicole said.

Kathleen snapped her head around, but her expression softened the moment it touched Nicole. "What do you want me to say? What do you think happened? I don't care for the details. He got in trouble and he couldn't handle that trouble. That's how it's always been. And trust me, I wish to god it wasn't the case."

She shook her head and sucked in air as if she struggled to remember how to do it. "I don't know what I did wrong. But it must have been _something_ or we wouldn't be here, not you and me and not Aiden, either."

Nicole said nothing. It had never been much use to argue with her mother when she was in that mood, or perhaps in that place. Very distantly, Nicole recalled an incident with her father, she must have been very small and all she remembered were still images of a hospital and its awful smell and her mother's black mood.

Kathleen looked her son over, slowly, something was working behind her eyes and she clenched her teeth at it and blinked it away. She took a deep breath, more laboured perhaps than she was willing to admit, but Nicole wouldn't know where to begin if she wanted to argue about it.

"Come on," Kathleen said. "Let's see what the cop has to say."

Nicole trailed after her mother, reluctant to leave Aiden behind. It felt like abandoning him, like she had to chose sides between her brother and her mother. It had been so much easier in Belfast, when the choice had been obvious, and she had been too young to even realise it was being made. She didn't know how her mother had found the strength for it.

* * *

**April 2002_**

Aiden still looked badly battered on the day he faced the judge. His hair was still short and growing back unevenly where the scars were. The bruises had all healed, but he still sat at an odd angle and it took him a little bit longer to straighten once he stood up. To Nicole, it didn't look like he was ready to leave therapy and be thrown in prison, with all it entailed, but she'd bitten back on that comment.

At her side, her mother was silent and stiff as always, keeping her gaze fixed straight ahead, rarely looking directly at her son — or at Nicole herself for that matter.

Kathleen had refused to testify in any capacity, despite the urging of Aiden's attorney. It'd leave a good impression, he'd said, give him a chance to spin a more heart-wrenching story for the judge. Poor immigrant kid, never had a chance, got pulled under before he could get out. All he needed was a bit of leniency and a second chance, that sort of thing. Kathleen disagreed with a monosyllabic 'no' and no explanation whatsoever.

Challenged by Nicole later, she had looked her daughter over and said, "I was an enabler for your father for twenty years and it helped no one. I'm not going to do that to Aiden. He deserves better. He'll get my help when he's ready to do his part. And if it…"

And Kathleen had stuttered there, her voice cutting out. For just a second, her mask cracked and she had looked ready to cry. She'd shaken free of it, though, like a dog coming in from the rain and her expression had hardened again. "If it means I have to lose my son to that world, I'll just have to accept it."

Aiden and Kathleen hadn't been on very good terms even before the incident, but after he'd woken up in hospital, they had talked exactly once. And all Aiden had said was: 'Don't worry about the bill."

Telling, perhaps, giving Kathleen whatever final confirmation she thought she still needed for his criminal involvement. Nicole wasn't quite so sure, Aiden had never liked burdening his family with his problems, so even if he wasn't sitting on a pile of illegal money, that's exactly what he'd say and scrape by on his own somehow.

The trial was short, practiced, one in a hundred similar cases. The police had launched a wider investigation into Aiden's background when they failed to find anything useful on his assailants. All they'd found were a handful of discrepancies, a little more money than his work warranted, a few too many known criminals in his circle of friends, though all of it easily explained by growing up where he had. Even Nicole knew the odd convict, it didn't mean you got into it yourself.

The only damning thing was his laptop. He'd had it with him when he was attacked and the cops never ventured to give it back. Apparently, its encryption had been something of a challenge to the CPD's IT department, fuelling the police's interest. What they found on the machine eventually brought Aiden to court for nothing more serious than computer tampering.

To Nicole all of it were minor things. It painted the picture of a man skirting illegality, but usually keeping on the right side of things, doing the best he could with the hand he'd been dealt. It was how she described him from the witness stand. Playing the tough guy only because that's how he'd grown up, but he was caring underneath it all. Across the room, she had watched her mother's face as she spoke, but there wasn't even a twitch.

Throughout the trial, the judge had been hostile, foul-mouthed for a man of authority and making no secret out of just how little faith he had in Nicole's testimony or Aiden's own smooth and ready-made explanation for absolutely everything. He didn't believe it and the only misgiving he really had, it seemed, was that he couldn't slap Aiden down with a harsher sentence and had to content with the eleven months of a mere misdemeanour.

"I'm not going to put this in politically correct terms, Mr. Pearce, you are a man so deep in shit, I can smell it from here. Unfortunately, that does not constitute any form of evidence. I know you're not just some minor criminal who writes computer viruses as a hobby, I've seen enough of your type, more often than not in much the same beaten up state you're in. But, again, that's not evidence. However, not even your _own mother _would stand up for you, what does that say about you? I'm under no illusion that jail-time will reform you in any way and it's beneath me to hope you'll encounter more sharks bigger than yourself. But I _will _count every minute you're not out on the street as a victory for all honest Chicagoans. Now, get that waste of space out of my courtroom and behind bars where he belongs."

* * *

**April 2003_**

Tighe had just dropped his ass on the couch and switched on the TV when the doorbell rang. He looked up and cursed. The bell rang again, longer this time. Tighe sighed. Maybe Tyra was early? Not that he'd mind if his girl curled up in his lap while he watched sports, but that'd be a cold day in hell.

He went to the door and opened it, already half through the diatribe he was going to lop at whoever had disturbed him. Instead he choked on his own indrawn breath.

"Fuck Aiden," he gasped, covering his surprise, but the smile he put on his face was bewildered and tense. "I didn't think you were out already."

"Three weeks," Aiden said. "Hi, T. Can I come in?"

Tighe blinked, took his hand from the door and shuffled out of the way. "Sure, absolutely. I… how are you, man?"

Aiden strode past him and inside, Tighe lagging behind, still trying to sort his thoughts. He eventually managed to close the door and take a few more steps, standing awkwardly in his own apartment, at a loss of how to act.

Time behind bars didn't seem to have harmed Aiden in the least, if anything he looked a bit bulkier than Tighe remembered him, though he'd always been imposing. He had his hands tucked away in the pockets of a dark leather jacket, face shadowed by a baseball cap.

"Doing alright," Aiden said with a faint shrug. "Staying with a friend for now."

"Getting back into business?" Tighe asked and chopped his teeth down into his lower lip to shut himself up. It wasn't really a topic he was keen on, all things considered. "Uh, do you want a beer? Sit down, man."

"Never been _out_ of business," Aiden said, turned on his heel and faced Tighe. "No thanks, why don't _you _sit down?"

Before he really realised what he was even doing, Tighe was halfway to his couch and by that point, he had too much momentum to stop without making things even more awkward. Turned out, sitting down meant Aiden just towered more. Just great.

"So…" Tighe started. "Something wrong?"

Aiden shrugged again. He walked in a small circle past the couch until he was right behind it. Momentarily out of Tighe's field of vision, the hair on the nape of his neck were standing on edge. He itched to get back to his feet and face him.

"Aiden?" he turned and began to get up, but Aiden dropped both his hands on his shoulder and pushed him back down and into the threadbare upholstery.

Without letting go of him, Aiden leaned down from behind and said, "You sold me out."

Tighe felt his eyes go wide, at the accusation and the low growl it was voiced in, he flinched under the heavy grip on his shoulders before he could muster any outrage.

"What?! No! Why would you think that?"

Without warning, Aiden let go of him and Tighe snapped his head around to at least _see _him, though it wasn't a particularly reassuring sight. Aiden had put his hands into his pockets again. He stepped around the couch table, booted feet carefully manoeuvring around the heaps of unwashed clothes and old pizza cartons. He returned to the door reached out and picked the key from behind the potted plant there.

"Aiden!" Tighe sputtered. "I never did anything! We're friends, remember?"

Aiden made a noncommittal noise, locked the door from the inside, then turned back around to regard Tighe from beneath the shadow of the cap.

"I've had eleven months to think things through. You were one of the few people who knew where I was going to be the night I was attacked."

"I thought it was Dead Men Walking?" Tighe said. "Come on, they like me even less than they like you."

"That's because you're in debt with them," Aiden said. "Or you were. Word on the street is, Dead Men are leaving you be."

"Well, I paid up," Tighe huffed. "Is it that hard to believe?"

Aiden returned to him, faced him down and Tighe had had it with the intimidation tactic, one moment to the next. He _knew _Aiden, knew him when he was still a scrawny fifteen year old with more guts than actual brawn to back it up. He wasn't just going to sit here and take it.

Tighe came off the couch, somewhat more sluggishly than he would have liked, but it was carried on cold-sweated indignation, leaning forward until they were face to face.

"Okay, Aiden, fuck this shit," he snarled. "You think I betrayed you? You want to be an asshole to your oldest friend, go right fucking ahead. I don't care. But get the fuck out before I kick your ass down the stairs! I…"

The worst part was, he _kind of _saw the move coming, but there was just nothing he could do. Easy as you please, Aiden placed a hand on his chest, fingers spread wide and pushed until the back of his knees hit the edge of the couch and he buckled.

"Come on, man!" Tighe started, edging back and forth, but he didn't dare trying to get up again. Aiden was terrifying like that, face set in a perfectly hard mask. "After all these years?"

"You sold me out," Aiden said. "You told Drago what I was doing. Has to be you, everyone else checks out. No one's got anything to gain, except you."

"We're friends!" Tighe insisted, blood draining from his face. "Come on, since we were kids. We went to Marston together for the first time, remember?"

"Yeah," Aiden nodded. He turned on his heel, surveying the room, gauging the likelihood of Tighe making a run for some hidden weapon or other, trying the door because he'd forgotten it was locked. He kept himself firmly in the way.

Looking down on Tighe, Aiden said, "That's why I don't get it. If you had trouble with the Dead Men I could've helped. That's what I do, you know, fixing shit?"

Tighe frowned at the words. "Yeah," he growled. "Big bad fixer, you are. Never know if I can actually afford you, you know."

He settled a bit further into the couch, looked up at Aiden and tried to take a steadying breath. There was nothing to read in Aiden's face, nothing he could identify anyway and what he _did _recognise wasn't pleasant. Aiden had made up his mind, perhaps months ago. Nothing about this was an accident, or spontaneous at all. And Tighe had never seen Aiden stop once he'd started.

Tighe rubbed his hand down his face, then wiped the cold sweat on the couch. "I'm sorry, man, really," Tighe forced through clenched teeth. "I didn't know it was… going to be like that. Drago said he'd only send a warning, not beat you half to death. That wasn't the deal."

"Hm," Aiden made. He pulled a bundle from his pocket.

"You know how they found me?" he asked conversationally. "Near as the cops could reconstruct it, anyway. I don't really remember much, probably a good thing. Seems I got dumped in the trash behind the station and that's where the garbage collectors found me. Doctor said I must have been out for several hours before that, much longer and I wouldn't have been bouncing back."

"Shit," Tighe wheezed, wide-eyed, attention caught between Aiden's immobile face and what he was doing with his hands. The small bundle unrolled to reveal injecting equipment. Tighe's gaze snapped up, stared at Aiden without blinking. "What the hell?"

"Well," Aiden said slowly, glanced up and briefly stopped his work. "You are going to OD."

Tighe shivered, caught between trying to jump from the couch and pressing himself deeper into it.

"What!? No! I'm good, I've been good for months! Everyone knows that!"

Aiden shrugged, got back to work. Picked up the syringe and fitted it with a needle.

"It was a bad relapse," he said.

"You are going to kill me!" Tighe's voice cut out.

"T," Aiden said soothingly. "You really shouldn't have done what you did. That was dumb."

Tighe wedged himself into the couch, watched Aiden move without blinking. His expression wavering between fear and desperate disbelief. He seemed to have all forgotten he could bolt for the door, now that Aiden had his hands full and might need a second longer to react. Tighe looked away from Aiden, looked at the door and his breathing stuttered. Shit, _shit. _Aiden had locked it, drawn the key. It'd take far too long to knock it open.

"But we're friends!" Tighe tried again. "I got you started in Chicago! When you were fresh from Ireland and everybody was laughing at your accent! That was _me! _You owe me!"

"You sold me out to Drago," Aiden added. "I owe you nothing."

He sat back on the couch table, holding the spoon over the flame of his lighter. "Consider yourself lucky," he added. "I got you good stuff, none of that shit your suppliers always had in theirs."

"You can't… be _serious!" _Tighe said, gaze glued to the little flame.

Aiden looked up. "What makes you think so?"

"Because you… because I know you! You know _me! _We go back!"

Aiden shook his head. "You keep saying, but then I find out what that means for you. How much was your debt? Couple hundred dollars. And I got beaten up and tossed in the trash. I almost died. I could've been crippled. And I went to jail."

"Don't pin that on me!" Tighe demanded. "You went to jail because you had it coming!"

Aiden didn't answer, but while Tighe thought he saw the accusation connect, it wasn't anything he could cash in on.

"Why _me?"_ Tighe tried. He'd try everything at this point. There had to be _something, _right? "What about Drago? His guys beat you up and dumped you! I didn't even want that!"

Aiden looked up, digging a cold gaze right through Tighe's skull. "Because I don't give a shit about Drago. He's an old gang-banger weeping for his glory days. He's just nursing ancient grudges because that's all he's got left. But _you_, T, you I trusted."

"Fuck, man… what do you want to hear?"

Tighe watched Aiden draw up the injection and for some reason, only then it it click through Tighe's brain that Aiden wasn't playing around, this wasn't a _scare tactic, _this was the real thing. That needle was going to go in his arm and it was going to kill him. Tyra would come in later and find him and she'd think…

Tighe didn't try to go for the door. He'd never make it and Aiden was too strong and too fast to take on in a serious fight. If he wanted out of this, he had just one shot at it.

He went for the syringe, threw himself forward with all his weight, from a bad angle, driven forward by his own fear and adrenaline. It was a blind lunge and Tighe never knew if Aiden had always known he'd try or if his reflexes were just that fast.

Without dropping the syringe, Aiden brought up his left elbow, let Tighe run himself into it with all he had and left him to flounder for a moment. Aiden got to his feet and swirled around. He caught one of Tighe's wrists in his free hand, held it and twisted, turned Tighe to follow the angle of the arm. Tighe just went with it, gaze pinned on the syringe, held out of reach, but if he somehow got to it, if he got it into Aiden's skin instead…

Tighe didn't notice his feet were kicked away from under him until he was already falling. Aiden let go of his wrist for only a second, then gripped his upper arm instead and Tighe was lifted up and back down into the corner of the couch, one arm under him, keeping it pinned there by his own body.

Tighe just continued to struggle. He wasn't getting very far, but he could probably still ruin Aiden's neat little suicide setup. Get enough bruises and cops would ask questions. Get the needle into his arm at the wrong angle, that'd show up on someone's report, wouldn't it?

Aiden pressed his shoulder back down and kneeled over his thighs with one leg, holding Tighe's arm out and keeping the rest of his body almost entirely immobile.

Tighe couldn't see, Aiden's back was in the way. He tried to yank his arm free from under him, but it didn't work, only strained his muscles painfully. He waved his other arm, but Aiden's grip was too secure.

"No, please," Tighe pleaded. He was winded and his voice sounded pathetic. "Please, don't… don't kill me. I'm sorry, I didn't know what Drago would do. I'm … oh god, Aiden, _please… _no no no_!" _

He felt the tip of the needle, tiny point of cold. His arm shook with the effort of trying to get away, but all he managed, in the end, was the needle plunging in harder. It hurt and it'd bruise, he thought, of course it'd bruise around the puncture mark. It'd look like he'd been shaking when he injected himself.

He felt the needle withdraw and let his body go limp.

Aiden climbed off him and stepped back, eyed him.

"Please," Tighe said slowly. "It's not too late."

"It's done," Aiden said. He set the syringe down by the rest of the equipment on the couch table. Tighe realised Aiden was wearing gloves, he hadn't really registered before. It should have, it wasn't nearly cold enough for gloves.

"You can still call 911," Tighe said. He tried to hold on to his panic, it seemed important a few moments ago, didn't it? Aiden was murdering him, he should do something about that. But his body felt warm and heavy, like it didn't matter if he got up now. He wasn't going to beat Aiden anyway. He wouldn't make it to the phone, or the door. No one in this house would give a shit even if he screamed his lungs out… probably wouldn't have enough air for that anyway.

"I'm sorry, Aiden," he said. He slipped lower on the couch as his body relaxed despite himself. "When I heard what happened… I… am…"

He sucked in a deep breath, but it felt like it didn't go all the way down. Aiden was still watching him and he felt the gaze like an actual weight.

"Fuck," Tighe moaned and let his head roll back on the back of the couch. "You sure that's what you want?"

He was falling asleep, his thoughts were jumbled, fleeting. So many things that seemed to matter were suddenly beyond his reach. There was something he wanted, though. He didn't want to die, not like this, not now… he was… he…

"I'm always sure."

Aiden's voice was like ice-water, it cut through Tighe's fading consciousness, as cruel as the needle had been. It seemed ridiculous to Tighe he'd thought he could talk himself out of it, plead and beg with someone who could say this to an old friend in such a voice.

* * *

Aiden crossed to the other side of he street and found the shadow of a entranceway to lean into. Right on schedule, Tyra appeared at the other end of the road, coming from the train station.

He watched her for a while, leaning deeper into the shadows as she got closer. She'd never met him personally, but it didn't mean she wouldn't recognise him, he'd been friends with Tighe for too long to be sure, some stray snapshot was all it might take.

He pulled his phone out and quickly dialled a number.

"Will? It's Pearce."

_"… Pearce, uh… hey."_

"How is work?"

_"Fine, fine, it's all fine." _

"Get along with your partner?"

_"We're good. There's no… uh… problem at all." _

"Glad to hear. Here's the thing, Will. There's something you could help me with."

_"Uh, sure, if I can."_

"You can, won't get you into trouble. I just learned that an old friend of mine OD'd."

_"Sorry to hear that. What do you want me to do?"_

"Can you take a look at it? Make sure things go smoothly? I know the family, they've got enough problems without having their whole lives unravelled over such a tragedy."

_"I can look into it." _

"I'm sure you'll get it resolved quickly. I'd consider it a personal favour."

_"That's… yeah, I'll get it sorted. Don't worry about it. The family won't be bothered." _

"Thanks, Will, I'll remember this."

* * *

_End of _Black Sheep_

* * *

**Author's Note:** At this point in time, I'm kind of scared I'll be writing Watch Dogs oneshots for the rest of my life. I have no fucking idea why this game and my imagination are such a perfect match. Of course it's totally _had _to be the most unpopular game ever. Why wouldn't it be.

Anyway, I have no idea what heroin feels like and no interest to find out. I googled it, it should do.

* * *

_**Revised on 31/May/2015, 24/Feb/2016 and 29/Nov/2016**_


	20. State of Play

**Author's Note: **I've got to be honest, Aiden's manipulative and threatening side is an immense turn-on. This is also probably the closest I'll come to Aiden as he's written in Dark Clouds. While I don't exactly dislike his characterisation in the novel, he really is a much bigger jerk in that version to the point where he's losing some of his nuance.

**The story so far: **The Indigo State featured in the Nightcall story of the same name. To whit, it's an independently owned nightclub that serves as cover for a ctOS-proof marketplace, a business model developed after Lucky Quinn's blackmail material could no longer guarantee Blume and the police looked the other way.

* * *

[summary: not all allies are willing]

[takes place in 2015, after nightcall: indigo state]

**_State of Play**

* * *

At twenty-eight, Daniel Lowry considered himself a made man. He'd turned a failed career in professional sports into a sizeable fixer income and that experience into a solid, well-paying job as bouncer-slash-bartender in the Indigo State. He got things sorted out in his life. At peace with his father at long last, his sister safely in rehab and several nicely packed bank accounts ready for his old age. He'd never bothered being secretive with his preferences, either, less stressful that way and while the mob's natural machismo still got in the way sometimes, even a mobster bit back his dumb jokes if you hit him hard enough.

Everything was good.

A week earlier, he'd met a guy in his favourite hangout and, in retrospect, it was just amazing how wrong a first impression could be. Of course, it turned out he'd been deliberately misled, but he couldn't feel particularly good about that. The man had sat at the bar one late afternoon, somewhat older than the place's usual clientele and Daniel thought he recognised the type. Recently worked up the courage to come out of the closet and the wife took everything in the divorce as a result. Now, he was struggling to find his footing again, not quite sure if he liked this new liberty and insecure inside his own skin, but determined to figure things out.

Or that's what Daniel thought, anyway and the man had been so easily evasive on the subject, Daniel had just taken his own assumptions as facts. It was a good act, too. _Aiden… _should've tipped him off, of course, and there was even something passingly familiar about his face, but Daniel had dismissed it as some weird coincidence. This Aiden had too much shy charm. And it was quite shocking just how much a mere pair of glasses changed a man.

_This_ was not how he had pictured it. Not at all. Not in the slightest, but some residue of attraction was still there, as he found himself pinned against his own fridge by an outstretched arm and skewered in all other ways by sharp green eyes. He fidgeted away, but the arm didn't give him much room to move and those doubtlessly strong fingers rested far too close to his throat. It would be easy to shift that grip, he knew, easy to crush the breath from him.

His demure conquest had shed his skin, without much advance warning when he'd come into his kitchen, tossing a flash drive to the table and outlined, calmly, what it meant for Daniel and what he would have to do to get out of it alive. Stunned, Daniel's brain had to play catch-up for a full minute, trying to comprehend where this cold-eyed bogeyman had even come from.

The problem was, while Daniel thought he'd been dating, what the flash drive _documented_ was a series of more or less covet meeting between him and the vigilante.

Daniel had been in this game for long enough. He was a fixer and faced with a threat, his first and only instnct was to fight back. He had a shotgun stashed in his kitchen and he went for it before most of the gravity of the situation had even trickled into his consciousness. The information on that flash drive could break his life apart, but if he brought home the vigilante's head on a spike… now that was a different story.

Daniel knew he was fast_,_ but he might as well have been moving in slow-motion. He'd barely got his fingertips on the metal of his gun, never had a chance to bring it around, because Pearce wasn't just faster, he dispatched Daniel with a trained efficiency that left him reeling, a point of numbing pain in his elbow and crawling up to render his shoulder useless. He'd suffered a kick to his knee and it'd buckled. Pearce had picked him up and pushed him into the fridge with laughable ease. It wasn't like Daniel hadn't _looked, _the man was in perfect shape, up until now, it had been a very attractive feature.

"Fuck you," Daniel forced through clenched teeth.

"No, sorry," Pearce said. He glanced to the side and gave the shotgun a kick, made it slide across the floor and out of easy reach, even if Daniel somehow got free.

"Can we talk now?" Pearce asked, cool gaze digging into Daniel.

"Fuck…" Daniel started and was choked into silence. The pressure lifted again immediately once he fell silent. He narrowed his eyes and tried to take a steadying breath, not that it was doing him much good. He forced his body to relax and finally Pearce let him go, stepped away and retrieved the shotgun while Daniel was still getting himself sorted. There was a brief opening when Pearce picked up the gun, but Daniel wasn't stupid enough to try anything. Their first scuffle had made it quite clear who was in charge.

Pearce put the gun on the table, glanced back at Daniel and pulled a handgun from its holster at his shoulder, put it on the table beside the shotgun and took a very deliberate step away.

Daniel watched uncertainly, gaze skittering away from the guns and at Pearce, who gave him a short, unpleasant smirk. "In case you're feeling lucky."

Though he voiced it as a challenge, but it really was just an insult. Daniel stayed where he was, slowly massaging his shoulder and putting all his weight on his good leg.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"Whatever's in the basement of the Indigo State."

Of course that's what he'd want. Everyone, starting from Haugh downward, in the State had a healthy dose of paranoia regarding any potential vigilante intervention, or at least, that's how Daniel had thought of it. There'd never been any doubt the vigilante would sniff out the place eventually and come calling. Daniel hadn't expected to be the weak link, though, and he obviously hadn't been nearly paranoid enough.

"I can't get you in," Daniel said.

"You won't have to," Pearce shrugged. "The place is shielded, can't get any signal through the ceiling and the walls, there's nothing I can do about that. But I can still get a look inside, you'll just have to carry everything in and out."

"No."

"Have you been listening?" Pearce demanded with calculated impatience. "What do you think will happen if Haugh learns of our acquaintance? What's he going to think?"

"Haugh isn't stupid," Daniel said. "I'll explain. I won't let you leak this shit to him, I'll take it to him myself."

"Yeah, and he's going to believe you," Pearce agreed, but he seemed entirely too sure of himself. "But he won't take any chances. The thing about the Indigo State, what I can figure out, it's a very risky truce. Upset that in any way and it comes crashing down. Haugh can't take the risk, even if he trusts you. The others, from Club to Pawnee Militia, they won't. And they're all running scared of me. There's nothing they wouldn't do to keep me away."

Daniel opened his mouth to argue, but couldn't come up with anything good. Pearce had a point, unfortunately. It was hard to tell just how much he really knew about the Indigo State's basement operations and how much was conjecture and guesswork, but he'd got it figured out quite accurately. The men who frequented the State, they were slow to trust and quick to judge. There was no enforceable law down there, it worked because everyone involved found it expedient to play along, because no one liked the thought of ctOS watching their dirty business.

"I won't get anything in," Daniel said. "Security's too tight."

He tried to relax some of his muscles, scooted to the side slowly, leaned against the kitchen counter, taking more weight off his hurting knee.

"You'll find a way," Pearce seemed unimpressed. "And I got a bunch of very neat toys."

"Why me?" Daniel asked, though he didn't especially care.

"Everyone's got pressure points," Pearce explained and surprised Daniel a little. He hadn't expected Pearce to be open about his game-plan, or perhaps it _was _part of the plan and Daniel just didn't get it. "With you, I first thought I'd get to you through your skank sister. Recovering drug addicts are easy targets, but it didn't look like it'd get you to do what I need."

"Leave Cassie out of it," Daniel snapped, but it was reflex, not conviction, he was pretty sure it showed just how tired he was of looking after her while she pissed away every new chance he worked out for her.

"I am," Pearce assured him. "You'd feel guilty, but she wouldn't get you to move."

"So you hit on me?" Daniel asked, scowl sneaking up on him.

"Seemed the easiest way," Pearce shrugged. "It took me a while to figure out what to do with my celebrity status. It's a pain, most of the time, but if it works I'll take it."

Daniel looked away from him, at the flash drive. Without that celebrity status, the records on that thing wouldn't have nearly the same impact, it'd still be a problem, but one he might be able to talk himself out of. As it was, Haugh would recognise the vigilante right through his affected warm smile and unnecessary glasses. Unlike Daniel, Haugh would know exactly who he was looking at.

"You don't just want intel, do you?" Daniel said. "You want to tear it down."

Pearce laughed, clipped short and abrasively dry. "What do you think?"

"What are you going to do?"

"We'll see," Pearce said. "Now, are you in?"

"I get a _choice_?" Daniel sneered.

"There's always a choice," Pearce shrugged again. "You can go for the gun again, or that knife you keep fingering for behind your back."

Caught, Daniel stilled abruptly. Pearce continued, "Maybe you'll get lucky with Haugh, maybe you don't. Or you take your chances with me. If you play it smart, no one's ever going to know. Maybe I'll even pay you a bonus."

It was a steak knife, left there from yesterday's dinner. Daniel didn't think he could throw it accurately, but it's serrated edge would leave an ugly wound if it tore through skin. Pearce was right, skill wasn't going to cut it — literally, as it were — but luck just might. He almost did it, too, but the problem was, Daniel wasn't dumb enough to. It annoyed him how Pearce probably knew exactly that. He hadn't really explained how he'd figured out Daniel was a good choice, some manoeuvring would have brought any one of his co-workers in the same or at least a similarly compromising position. Pearce had picked Daniel because Daniel had a background as a freelancer, an opportunist, someone willing to look for his own advantage.

Daniel had even _told _him as much, when he'd still had completely different assumptions about where their relationship was actually going.

Pearce didn't wait for an answer. He picked up his pistol and put it away. Unconcerned, he turned to go.

"I've got your number," Pearce said back over his shoulder from the door and left.

Once he was gone, the first thing Daniel did was curse, loudly. Himself and the vigilante and Haugh and everything else he could think of. He punched the fridge and for a long, insane moment he contemplated picking up the shotgun and running after Pearce. He'd gun him down on the stairs, consequences be damned. The man was too sure of himself, there must be hundreds of things he never saw coming.

He was going to be right about this one, though. Daniel didn't go after him.

* * *

Daniel felt like a fraud, equipped with the vigilante's high-tech toys, no matter what he did. The feeling dogged him through his days, until it was actually _weeks. _It became a kind of routine that he'd upload whatever he'd recorded throughout his working evenings and nights, Pearce didn't even have to prompt him to do it anymore. It was the deal and he'd sealed it. This way, at least, he didn't have to see or hear Pearce much and was spared the unpleasant reminder of just how badly he'd been played.

It was all Haugh's fault, he decided one early morning, sitting in his kitchen after he'd come home, smoking one cigarette after the other, waiting to finally feel tired enough to go to sleep.

Haugh had equipped that stupid basement with state-of-the-art detectors and layers upon layers of insulation. He swore to any client, up and down and sideways, that _no one _would ever survey anything that went on in the basement of the Indigo State. Bullshit, obviously, all of it. Nothing but a sales pitch. The tech might have made it slightly harder for the vigilante to get what he wanted, but it was working out all right for him, as far as Daniel could tell.

He stubbed out the cigarette and watched the last bit of smoke disperse into the air. Early morning light had begun filtering in through the blinds, looked like it was going to be a beautiful day in late spring. Warm and sunny… and maybe he should just march up to Haugh and spill everything.

Just Haugh, no one else needed to know, they could _use _this against Pearce, feed him a thousand false pieces of information, lead him on endlessly on some wild goose chase until he managed to break his own neck in some stupid mistake or other. Everyone made mistakes, even this guy. He had too many enemies, surely one of them would pay good money for this kind of access.

The question remained, though, the one Daniel couldn't solve for himself. He _thought _Haugh wouldn't put a bullet through his head, but he wasn't certain of it, not enough to stake his life on it and he'd been digging himself deep these last few weeks, too.

His laptop switched itself on and Daniel turned a dull eye toward it. He reached for another cigarette while the machine booted. He lit up and watched indifferently as the login screen flared up and immediately closed down again to show his desktop. He'd tried changing the password, early on, but that hadn't seemed to make any different. He had taken petty revenge by setting it to 'foxes are vermin', but he wasn't even sure Pearce ever saw it.

Pearce's face appeared on the screen, mercifully only in windowed mode this time.

"Gonna put tape over the cam," Daniel muttered and took a long draw off the cigarette, not quite looking directly at Pearce.

"Be my guest," Pearce said, deep voice turned metallic and hollow through the laptop's mediocre speakers. "What's that big thing Haugh mentioned?"

Daniel drew on the cigarette again, took his time before he answered. "No idea," he said. "Haugh just said something big's going to go down. Niall Quinn will be there. Some guys from the Militia and somebody from the Chinese. Not like Haugh tells the hired help everything."

"Yeah, but you've worked for him for years," Pearce pointed out. "You were one of the first he recruited for the Indigo State. He trusts you."

"I don't know anything," Daniel shook his head. "Look, Haugh isn't chatty, not with anyone. It's also not a nice business environment down there. Nobody trusts anyone. I don't know shit and Haugh probably only knows a little more shit."

"Your best guess, then."

Daniel took a deep breath, held his cigarette in front of his face and watched the embers at the end fade. He could forego sleep for a while longer, fix himself a coffee and head to the gym instead. Maybe it'll clear his head. Maybe give him something to _hit._ He could download a picture of the vigilante and pin it on the punching bag…

"Quit wasting my time," Pearce interrupted.

"Or what?" Daniel asked, pulled his eyebrows up as far as they would go. He put the cigarette back in his mouth, leaned his head back as he drew in the smoke. "You'll just find someone else?"

"It won't matter for you," Pearce said darkly. "If you want to terminate this collaboration, you're less dangerous to me if you're dead."

"Didn't you say something about a bonus?" Daniel faked a hurt frown. "When you were still trying to make nice?"

"_After_ we are finished."

"When's that gonna be?"

"When I say so."

Daniel decided he'd pushed hard enough, any more of it and Pearce probably would make the laptop blow up in his face, or something equally dramatic. He took a last drag off the cigarette, then put it to balance on the edge of the ashtray and settled his arms on the table, leaning forward

"I don't know," Daniel said. "But my guess is, something about Blume. Militia runs security for Blume, at least the dirty end of it. I don't understand what's going on on that side, but Blume's the only connection between Club and Militia I can think of, guys hate each other's guts."

"Turf war," Pearce nodded. "I know. What about the Chinese?"

"The Chinese, right? Sounds like industrial espionage to me," Daniel shook his head. "Everything's always short notice, too. So things will go down tomorrow at the lasted, maybe even tonight."

"That's not much to go on."

"Well, it's all you'll get. I don't know anything else," Daniel snapped, long since out of patience.

Pearce actually smirked. Probably the least pleasant expression Daniel had ever seen from him. From the direction of Pearce's gaze, he was doing something else on his own computer, barely looking at Daniel.

"From _you_," Pearce said. "I never said I had no other sources."

There was another short pause while Pearce apparently did something with those 'other sources', then he looked directly at the camera again and Daniel still managed to be a little surprised at just how intimidating the man could be miniaturised to a third of an already small screen.

Pearce said, "We need to meet before you head into work."

"I got the night off," Daniel pointed out, but he already knew how well this was going to go over.

"Yeah, make something up," Pearce said, entirely predictably. "You're in the State tonight."

Daniel waved him off irritably. "Sure, no problem, whatever you need, I'm here to serve. Are you going to come by?"

Pearce bent him another acidic smile, but didn't deign to answer. Daniel saw his gaze drop to his keyboard and a moment later, the window filled with black, then closed itself.

Daniel sat for a moment in silence, considering what he would've done if Pearce _had_ really agreed to a fixed date, the kind that gave Daniel some advance warning and a chance to actually _reach_ the shotgun.

In an afterthought, Daniel put his hand to the top of his laptop and snapped it closed.

* * *

Arrogance, Daniel decided, was the vigilante's weakness, his _pressure point_. Sure, projecting invincibility probably meant fewer people were willing to try him, but it wouldn't bring him out on the other side of complicated plot like the one he'd roped Daniel into. Besides, the best way to deceive others was to deceive yourself and Pearce seemed to have that one down pat.

In the end, it'd break his neck. Daniel entertained the thought for quite a while, while pinned down behind the bar counter in the basement of the Indigo State and trying very hard not to look as the time ticked away on his phone.

Of course, for any member of the criminal underworld, Pearce had never quite had the halo the wider public had outfitted him with. It was too easy to see what tools he was using, the methods and underlying disregard for life, limb and sanity of everyone around him. To people like Daniel, Pearce had always only been a very dangerous, very capable loose cannon. Someone you took down the moment the chance presented itself, because this brand of driven focus never burned out on its own. Pearce wasn't going to stop until someone made him.

And that _someone _quite obviously, wasn't going to be Daniel. He wasn't greedy enough for the glory and he wasn't stupid enough to miscalculate the probabilities. Even if he wasn't as untouchable as he pretended to be, Pearce was still damn good at what he was doing.

Some hand-wavey explanation about needing some extra money had had Haugh let him work tonight, but Quinn and the rest didn't seem to be showing up.

The room that'd been reserved for Quinn, the largest of the too small basement rooms, was currently occupied by a nervous looking business man and a fixer. A hit contract, by Daniel's guess, nothing spectacular at all. Some minor gangs were in another room, negotiating a truce, or maybe an alliance so they could take out a bigger bite out of Viceroy territory.

All in all, it seemed a somewhat slow night.

Daniel looked at the phone.

Was Quinn's absence good or bad for the vigilante's plan? He hadn't seemed to care either way, but Daniel had no way to know what the man's other sources had revealed.

"Lowry."

Daniel startled, picked up the phone and shoved it out of sight quickly. He concentrated on the glass he'd been clutching and pretending to polish for the last few minutes. Haugh had materialised right in front of him, or at least that was how it felt like. Haugh looked displeased and vaguely worried, but Haugh always looked like that.

"Yep," Daniel said, put the glass away and reached for the next.

"Something up?" Haugh eyed him. "You're jumpy tonight."

Daniel looked back at him as earnestly as he could.

"Didn't get much sleep yesterday," Daniel said with an apologetic smile. "Makes me tense."

Haugh kept scrutinising him and Daniel had no idea if the excuse was working or not.

At the edge of his vision, he just about saw as the number of the phone change, but he couldn't make out the precise digit. How much time was left? Less than ten minutes?

"Keep your head," Haugh finally said. "Need it in the game."

Daniel nodded, biting his tongue inside his mouth and Haugh tapped the counter before he left. Daniel stared after him, wondering if this had been the moment, if it had come and gone, for him to come clean.

Perhaps he really was just a coward. Didn't have the guts to take on Pearce on his own, didn't even just tell him to go to hell with his damned blackmail. What was the worst that could've happened? He could've packed his bags and just _left, _plenty of work for a fixer anywhere in the country. He hadn't needed to stay and play the vigilante's game.

He put the glass away and rubbed his hand down his face.

"Shit…"

Through the gaps in his fingers, he saw the time on the phone, saw the number change again.

"Hey, Lowry!" someone called from the door and Daniel snapped to attention immediately. He glanced up to see a fellow bouncer in the doorway.

"What?"

"Haugh's busy, wanna take a cigarette break?"

Less than five minutes, that was what the clock was saying, seconds ticking away at the back of Daniel's head, little hammers beating away at his nerves. And here was a chance to be outside when it all went down — perhaps literally — outside and safe and seen to be innocent by anyone involved.

Not as innocent as he'd appear if he stayed.

"Nah," he said. "'bangers want a round of shots to seal the deal. Gonna take care of that, sneak away later."

The other man shrugged, in leaving he said, "Okay, your loss."

Passively, Daniel watched him go, wished to God he'd closed the door again, but he probably wasn't going to make it. His gaze glued to the phone, Daniel put his arm down on the counter in front of him and with a sudden sweep, brushed several glasses to the floor. They shattered in a heap of gleaming shards.

Daniel cursed, threw the towel over his shoulder and crouched down.

He counted off the last seconds, but he must have got it wrong after all, because he was at 'four' when the world just broke around him, deafening, darkness crashed over his head and took everything.

* * *

He wasn't dead, it become clear pretty quickly, because he was pulled back to consciousness by the steady, insistent ringing of his cellphone. The sound came from far away, but somehow managed to distinguish itself from the ringing in his ear that blanked out all other noise.

He opened his eyes carefully and took stock of his surroundings before he attempted to move. The explosion had torn a hole in the wall opposite him, turned the bar counter into a pile of firewood and heaped it over him, boxed him in against the wall. The air was thick with dust and smoke, difficult to breathe. He saw licks of fire from the hole in the wall, eagerly lapping around its edges.

The phone kept ringing.

Daniel forced himself to his hands and knees, shaking free of the wood. He'd set his hand in the broken glass he'd made before, but the pain, like the noise, was a distant thing. The shockwave had thrown the phone away and it had landed on the floor a little away, surrounded by unidentifiable pieces of debris.

Moving slowly, Daniel picked up the phone, it was almost a reflex, he didn't feel like he was thinking straight at all.

_"Daniel."_

Pearce's voice, he wasn't even surprised.

"You'll have to shout," Daniel remarked with a calm he probably shouldn't feel. He pulled himself upright on a broken chair, tried to breath, but only managed to choke himself.

_"You need to head up. Right now. I don't know if the ceiling will hold."_

Daniel thought he should be more frightened, more in pain, more of _everything. _He felt like he was wrapped in cotton, as if nothing could get quite close enough to him. He picked a careful path through the debris, just about remembered to keep away from the fire. Everything was covered by dust and smoke was filling the basement rapidly.

As he passed the room where he'd planted the bomb, he stopped and shuffled around. There was some odd pain in his leg he couldn't identify. He reached out and massaged it carefully, his hand came away bloody. He flexed his foot experimentally, but it seemed to be functioning fine, so he pushed it to the back of his mind.

The room was devastated, lit only by angry, dark flames. Part of him was almost disappointed by the complete absence of body parts and other gore in that room, but perhaps if you stood this close to a bomb, you ended up in much smaller pieces.

_"Keep moving," _Pearce yelled in his ear. _"Upstairs caught fire and there's a panic. You need to get out."_

"So _do_ like me," Daniel muttered. He barely heard himself, but he started walking again, found the stair buried under more debris, shattered parts of wall and ceiling, Haugh's vaunted security system was all bent out of shape, uselessly thrown in his way in a feeble attempt to trip him.

_"Turn right on top of the stairs," _Pearce said. _"Make for the north-eastern fire exit."_

He lacked the energy to question the directions, besides, it was as good anything. He needed to go _somewhere, _might as well do as he was told. He hadn't been doing much else these past weeks, anyway.

It took some effort to push through upstairs. While the blast itself had done comparatively little damage to the nightclub itself, the power was cut and plunged everything in darkness, fostering the panic any bomb explosion would cause anyway, a mess of people and smoke, getting in Daniel's way.

The fire exit had been found by few other people, but most seemed to be pushing for the main doors.

Daniel stumbled outside and the fresh air seemed to hit him over the head, make him slump into the nearest wall and slide down with his back pressed against it. He'd lowered the phone, he'd drop it if it didn't require more effort than just leaving it where it was. He could faintly make out Pearce's voice, but he couldn't understand what he was saying.

After a while, he seemed to give up. Good on him.

He was aware of people milling about, but they made no sense to him. He heard sirens, very far away and thought it was about time. He felt like he'd been sitting there for hours, just… being. Until he was roughly pulled from this malleable sort of revery, paying attention to all the tiny points of pain in his body and idly wondering when they would increase and suffocate him.

His arm was gripped, hard enough to leave bruises, if he didn't have them already, and he was yanked up, where he stood swaying as if he was drunk.

It brought him face to face with Pearce. He didn't bother trying to read in his face, there was nothing he wanted to see. He tried very hard not to sag into Pearce's arms, but his legs were unreliable and he could do nothing but stumble along.

"Let's go," Pearce said and Daniel let himself be steered away from the Indigo State and through a winding series of back alleys until Pearce shoved him into the passenger seat of a car.

"You'll want to stay awake," Pearce said as he started the car, but it was difficult, the low humming of the engine and the softness of the seat was too inviting. He drifted off and it didn't matter, but Pearce had to go and ruin it all again by opening the windows and dragging him upright in the seat several times.

* * *

He must have passed out at some point after all, but when he woke, he was stretched out on a hospital bed in a dark room. This time, everything hurt, but his mind was clear again. Light spilled in through the open door, outlined the vigilante's tall shape in perfect black.

"Why did you save me?" Daniel asked.

"I owe you a bonus," Pearce said. "It's on the table beside you."

Daniel glanced down and he could make out a bundle of money, but it was too dark to gauge how much it was. A generous couple of thousands, he supposed, because it wasn't just payment, it was hush-money.

"Yeah, thanks," Daniel groaned and let himself fall back. "This isn't a hospital, is it."

"No, acquaintance of mine, something like a doctor."

"You could've just left me," Daniel said. "Why bother?"

Pearce didn't answer immediately and his face was in shadow, but his voice sounded almost amused. "You managed not to die in the blast, I couldn't risk you telling anyone the wrong things while you were too out of it to know what you were doing."

"Why not just kill me?"

"You sound disappointed," Pearce said.

Daniel took a breath. "You are the vigilante."

"Yes."

Daniel didn't mind the silence, he didn't care if it was awkward and needed to be filled, he was too tired and he hurt too much for that.

"Will you tell me something?" Daniel asked.

"What is it?"

"What was the point today?"

He sensed Pearce shift a little, changed his posture against the doorway. Daniel didn't look at him.

"You tell me," Pearce said, still oddly amused, or maybe it was just Daniel's perception of him.

Daniel heard himself laughing, the sound scratched his throat and hurt his stomach as sore muscles tensed.

"That big thing tomorrow, everyone will think they were the target and everyone will think one of the others did it. Or maybe Viceroys, because they were left out. Or the Russians trying to move back in over Quinn's weakness. Shit like that. But don't think no one will look your way."

"Doesn't matter," Pearce said. "Haugh's business model went up in flames, there won't be another."

"Are you through with me now?" Daniel asked. The only thing he still managed to give a fuck about, really, at least for now. The only thing he really wanted to do was go back to sleep, find some oblivion. Maybe this doctor-acquaintance of Pearce had something to help him with that.

"Yes, I am," Pearce said. He detached himself from the doorway. "You'd better not cross my path again. And you'd better keep your mouth shut."

Daniel lifted a hand and waved it back and forth limply, dismissing the threat.

"What do you think? I'm going to run up to Haugh and tell him the vigilante blackmailed me to plant a bomb under his ass? Not even just to spite you."

"Good," Pearce said and turned away. His shadow in the doorway didn't linger, didn't hesitate and the man who cast it, didn't stoop so low he repeated the threat. Daniel heard him stride down the hallway, faintly heard him talk with someone. The sound of a door and the light in the hallway went out, silence following in the wake of darkness.

* * *

_End of _State of Play_

* * *

**Revised on 31/May/2015**


	21. Harbinger - Part 1

[summary: aiden's network has been breached by an unknown hacker]**  
**

[this takes place in 2022]

**_Harbinger – Part 1**

* * *

Traffic was too slow. Traffic these days was _always _slow. ctOS had a habit of reporting _any _speed violation immediately and it was attention he couldn't afford right now. He was drawing enough attention with the noise of the combustion motor on his bike, wedged where he was between almost silent e-cars. Blume and the city had advanced the introduction of these cars with a hefty discount and tax cuts. The cars were self-driving and there was absolutely nothing they wouldn't tell Blume about their owners. In the last two years alone, these cars had started to outnumber normal cars within Chicago's city limits. They still required special permissions to drive outside the borders, but it was only a question of time. Blume had set down roots firmly everywhere.

Aiden flexed his hands around the grip, caught himself playing with the gas and forced himself into stillness as he waited for the traffic lights to change. Any other day, he could have hacked into it and made it jump for him, today he refrained, though he was surprised at how hard he had to push back against the reflex.

He had sometimes wondered how much time he had, playing this game. How long it would take for ctOS to finally fight back, until it wouldn't submit to him anymore. Yet, this wasn't it, this wasn't Blume or ctOS, he'd have a squadron of black helicopters hovering over him if it were. Blume wouldn't be content with hacking him, they'd find a way to tear him down bodily.

The lights finally changed to green and he let the engine howl as he accelerated, deriving some childish satisfaction from it. He cut sharply to the right, watched the concrete as it pulled close, an inch between his knee and the ground.

Blume thought they had taken the Bunker back. They still monitored it, carefully keeping track of its energy consumption, but for reasons that escaped Aiden, they'd never bothered to get surveillance up on most of the rest of island, nothing beyond what was already there and those cameras were easy to circumvent for anyone who had been there when they'd been placed.

Aiden's scramblers still worked. He'd tested them thoroughly before taking even one step outside and he kept a careful eye on their functioning now, as he drove over the bridge and past the old Bunker entrance.

The entire island had been Blume's old testing site, a miniature city and left as a carefully constructed industrial derelict once they moved out.

Free of the restraints of public road surveillance, Aiden sped up, wove through the walls of rusting shipping containers, let the bike bounce on overgrown train tracks. He pulled the bike around in front of another container, made it draw a hard circle before it stopped, leaving clear marks on the ground.

He climbed off and dragged the helmet from his head, hung it from the handle without a care and marched to the container, smashing his gloved fist into the metal hard enough to make it vibrate.

"Frewer!"

It took a while. It always did with Frewer, but eventually, the container was opened an inch, just wide enough to allow a careful look outside.

"What… do you want?"

"I need help," Aiden said and tried to sound and look non-threatening. Frewer had never stopped flinching in his presence and there were days when Aiden's patience with the behaviour was a little low and today, he was preoccupied with more important things. But it wouldn't help him if he spooked Frewer more.

"Help?" Frewer asked as if he had never heard the word before.

"Yes, help," Aiden nodded. "Can I come in or do you want me to shout it through the wall?"

Frewer _flinched, _but finally pushed the metal further and stepped aside to let Aiden inside, who closed the container behind him. Without missing a beat, he pulled his phone from his pocket and tossed it on a table, on top of a pile of electronics, disembowelled devises and loose wires.

"Someone's been in my system."

Frewer looked from him to the phone and back. He frowned at Aiden, "You want me to look at it?"

"Obviously."

"_You _want _me _to look at it?"

Aiden felt the muscles in his jaw tighten.

"I'm not getting anywhere," he said after a moment. "I can't figure out how they managed to get inside. I can't find the fucking backdoor and I can't close it. I can't even trace it properly. I wiped the system, twice, and I know my backups are clean, but it doesn't last. Can't get a handle on it."

Frewer seemed to be thinking, finally reaching for the phone. He turned it in his hand for a moment, as if he thought he could find some kind of physical evidence of the breach. He put it back down, then went to the back of the container and crouched down in front of his server array, pulling plugs seemingly at random.

"You know," he said without looking back. "You shouldn't use the lenses. If you're system is compromised… they'll see everything you see."

Momentarily glad Frewer wasn't looking at him, Aiden grimaced and reached up to swipe the contact lenses from his eyes. Digital lenses had been the most useful development he'd ever seen. It spared him the trouble of looking at his phone all the time, it probably saved his life a few times. The lenses had become part of everything he did.

He had forgotten they were there.

"I checked," he said, but quietly.

Frewer shrugged and heaved himself back to his feet, he flashed his teeth, but the expression was gone too quickly to be sure if it was a triumphant grin or not. Frewer's rig was decidedly old-school, at least on the surface. He didn't trust wifi networks and kept everything plugged in. He'd found some way to circumvent the Bunker's tracking system and leeched directly from the source. Aiden could log on, if he needed to, but he hadn't trusted his software not to set off every alarm in the network.

Frewer sat himself down on the table, pushed a stack of stuff aside to get better access to the keyboard, then looked up at the set of monitors on the wall, connecting to Aiden's phone.

"When's T-Bone going to be back?" Aiden asked after a while. He'd forced himself to lean against a barrel, cross his arms over his chest and pretend to be patient.

"I don't know," Frewer said, not looking at Aiden. "He doesn't tell me everything. I don't want him to. If they catch me, I can't betray him."

Data raced over the monitors, fast enough that even Aiden lost the thread a few times. Not for the first time, he wondered what Frewer would be able to do if he didn't waste so much time on meaningless paranoia. Not that he wasn't justified in some of it. Blume _was_ looking for him and who knew what they'd do if they got a hold of him, but Frewer had buried himself so deep inside his own shell, he'd effectively crippled himself.

"There," he said. "That's pretty sneaky."

Aiden stepped forward, calculated how close he could come to Frewer without startling him. He put a hand to the table and leaned in, an arm's length away.

"Your hacker is piggybacking on the ctOS signals and riding in whenever you connect yourself. Here," he pointed at the screen.

"I looked at that," Aiden said, somewhat defensively.

Frewer glanced up. "Looking isn't the trick. You've got to _see_. Your system isn't the one with the backdoor, ctOS is. I, uh, can't close that, by the way."

"Do you think that's Blume?"

"No-o," Frewer said slowly. "I don't think so. Doesn't look like Blume."

"DedSec?"

Frewer looked at him again. "You've angered them, too?"

"I'm not on their favourite persons list," Aiden said.

He pulled his breath in sharply and stood up straight. Paced a few steps, trying to think. The only answer to this type of breach, the only first aid step, would be to shut off his ctOS access. All of it, including the scrambler, until he found some working counter measure. But he couldn't take one step outside like that. There were still a handful of blind spots in the city, but he'd spend his entire time just getting anywhere, even with his face covered. ctOS tracked height and built and movement pattern, he couldn't conceal all of it, or all the time.

"Can you trace it back?" Aiden asked. "Can you find the hacker?"

"Hmm… no?"

Aiden spread his arms, exasperated. "No?"

"Look, I know your trigger finger is itching or something, but I'd have to dig through all of ctOS. Pretty deep, too. They'd know, at Blume, if I do that. They'll find me."

"I have to find this hacker," Aiden insisted. "What do you need me to do?"

Frewer turned around in his seat, glowering at Aiden. "There's nothing you can do! Blume will figure out what's going on! I can't hide that! And then they'll trace us, and they'll come here and it's all going downward from there." He looked down. "Sorry, for what it's worth."

"Not fucking much," Aiden muttered. "Can you do _anything?" _

Frewer seemed to think this through quite thoroughly, chewing on his lower lip. "I can tell you what your hacker's been looking at."

"That's something."

It wasn't something good, however. Whoever had wormed themselves into Aiden's system, they seemed interested in practically everything. His movements, his communication, every system he even looked at briefly. His whole life, or least everything he'd ever committed to a computer, or his phone. The lenses weren't powerful enough to record without significant lag, but it had apparently been attempted. Aiden even recalled the incident, several weeks earlier and he'd already suspected something was up, but he hadn't been able to find a trace.

"Oh," Frewer said thinly. "Have you… looked at your accounts… recently?"

"All of them?"

Frewer shrugged. "I don't know. How many… how many do you have?"

Aiden stared at the screen. His money was evenly dispersed over several accounts and two dozen fake identities, any one he could burn at a moment's notice if it became necessary. It wouldn't ever be a loss he couldn't take, but if someone was living off his own money, it was probably not a compliment to his skill.

"I can't tell," Frewer said. "But I don't think you've emptied all of them in the last few weeks."

"My money's gone?" Aiden said. "Let me see a list."

Frewer pressed some buttons, and the list scrolled over the screen. True enough, most of his accounts had been emptied, sometimes not completely, usually just above where Aiden would have been notified.

"I got a couple more," he said. It was beginning to feel like he needed every tiny victory. He scanned the screen when Frewer listed where the money went, some random offshore accounts that'd be a bitch to access from here, but…

"There," Aiden said. "ATM withdrawals, I don't usually do that from these accounts."

Frewer made a pained little sound. "Hacking banks is dangerous. If it's money, they are always extra careful. Don't make me."

Aiden narrowed his eyes, considered. "Well, I can't do it, all my shit is suspect and I need the videos from the ATMs. It's not that risky. You've got a direct connection to ctOS from here, you just route it through CPD servers, make it look like an official query, it's all automated. ctOS gets hundreds of queries like that every day."

"You c-could wait until Ray is back…"

Aiden took another deep breath, steadied himself. "Please? If that's the only lead I have, I can't afford to wait."

Frewer took another aggravatingly long minute to reach a conclusion, he suppressed a cheeky grin as he turned back to his screen. "Well, you said please…"

"Don't get used to it," Aiden muttered, but clamped his mouth shut. Negotiating his way around Frewer was the last thing he needed. Frewer looked at Aiden's app for the CPD access, but elected to go the manual route, finding his own way into CPD's network, access the form for ctOS' queries and pulled the ATM recordings from there.

It wasn't the big break he'd hoped it would be. A series of homeless people had apparently emptied the accounts, running Profiler over their faces revealed nothing of immediate interest.

Aiden cursed, pushed off from the table and stomped away until he reached the opposite wall. He stood there, staring at the metal, at the poster taped there. Some 1970s computer ad from a magazine.

"Do you know where I can find them?" Aiden asked.

"Homeless people, everywhere," Frewer said. "Under the freeway, under the bridges, subway tunnels, doorways… "

"A little more specific. Do any of them have cellphones? You can track them by…"

"Y-yes, I know."

Aiden said nothing, stayed where he was and listened to the yapping of Frewer's keyboard. DedSec was his best bet, but he'd done a good job recently of tearing down his connections to them. DedSec didn't like working for hire, they preferred to trade favours and he'd brushed them off one too many times when he hadn't jumped after they told him to.

At the same time, it didn't seem like DedSec's style. His hacker had mostly just _looked, _hadn't taken anything other than the bank accounts and that, too, seemed either out of convenience or just as a prank to show he could. So far, there'd been no real damage. With this type of access, the hacker could have sent the police down on him any time he liked. He'd know when Aiden was out of commission, where he was sleeping and when. By the time Aiden figured out what was going on, it'd have been too late.

He had no problem living on the edge, he'd been doing it for long enough, it was just what life was like for him. It didn't tear him up because he controlled it. To realise he'd completely lost that control _weeks_ ago…

"I, uh, got you something," Frewer announced.

Aiden turned back around. It took him a moment until he'd gathered himself, walked over to Frewer's side again. One of his monitors showed a live-feed from an L-station, showing a girl hanging around the stairs, asking passerbys for money. Profiler identified her as 'Brenna Holgate, 17', a runaway with a missing person's report filed on her.

She'd been the last one who'd withdrawn anything from his account, not even twenty-four hours ago. That trail wasn't even cold yet. Good.

"Before you r-run off," Frewer said and Aiden stilled before he had started. Frewer reached into a box by his side and pulled an ancient flip-phone out. He held it out to Aiden.

"It's a modified version of your scrambler," he explained. "It doesn't do anything else… I mean, it's still a phone and you can text, but nothing else… of what you normally do. The scrambler works through Profiler, not directly through ctOS, so I blocked it."

He looked at Aiden. "But if… if your hacker is really as good as that, he might get through anyway."

Aiden took the flip-phone, opened it and looked skeptically at it's monochrome screen and oversized pixels, "I'll draw attention just having that dinosaur."

"Leave your other phone here," Frewer said. "Maybe I can work something out."

Aiden snapped the phone closed and dropped it in his pocket. "Thanks."

"Are you… are you g-going to talk about the elephant?"

"Elephant?"

Frewer hung his shoulders. "We-ell. Whoever hacked you is… pretty good. I've seen only a little of your coding and it's… not bad at all, but, well, don't take it personally, but it could have a little more elegance."

"Elegance, really," Aiden arched his brows, caught himself smiling slightly.

Frewer flinched again. "What I mean is, whoever hacked you, he's… probably… he's better than you. But I can tell, that's not a lot of people. So… that should narrow it down?"

"You're thinking Defalt."

Frewer just gave him a pleading look.

"But you put him in the ground," Aiden pointed out. "T-Bone said you retrieved the corpse."

"… yes… but, maybe… that'd explain it, right?"

"Defalt wouldn't hound me for weeks," Aiden said after a moment. "He'd brag about it five minutes in. But maybe you're still onto something. Maybe not DedSec, just a rogue part of it."

He considered, then said, "I need to get in touch with DedSec, but I'd rather not do it through my rig. Are you okay if I use yours?"

"You mean, you're going to come back here?" Frewer asked slowly.

"I'll make sure I'm not followed," Aiden assured him. "I still got _some _tricks left."

"Oh, okay… yes," Frewer said, even if he looked like he'd rather decline and had himself convinced he'd face a baton if he tried. Aiden sighed inwardly. There was nothing he could do for Frewer and his nerves and while T-Bone was gone, he didn't have the luxury of choosing a different ally.

"Thanks," Aiden said and finally turned to go.

The metal scraped as he opened the container, stepped out. The last thing he heard, before the door locked again, was Frewer muttering, "He said 'thank you'. Twice. And 'please', once. That's worth something, isn't it? Do complete psychopaths do that? Maybe…"

Aiden shook his head as he retrieved his helmet and mounted the bike.

* * *

_End of _Harbinger – Part 1_

* * *

**Author's Note:** My favourite part of this? The flip-phone. Next time when Aiden runs away with my plot, I'll just punish him with it again.

Okay, I give up. I _will_ be writing these for the rest of my life. Every time I think I'm running out of ideas, something hits me over the head and I write six thousand words in an evening. That's _never ever_ happened before.

* * *

**Revised on 31/May/2015**


	22. Harbinger - Part 2

**Dear anonymous reviewer: **Unfortunately, I'm not entirely sure what to do with 'patchy dialogue'. I looked over it and it seems cohesive to me. Aiden is panicking in that scene, he's supposed to be all over the place and Tobias is never going to call him out on it. Without knowing what the exact issue is, I don't know what precisely needs fixing in your opinion.

* * *

**_Harbinger – Part 2**

* * *

Aiden arrived at the station during at the end of the rush hour that had had him bogged down earlier. He parked the bike on the side of the road. He pulled the flip-phone from his pocket and checked its status before he took off the helmet.

He called Frewer to confirm the girl was still there. Everything was riskier now. He couldn't access the cameras directly, he had no way to know if someone recognised him and called the cops and all he had if they _did _come calling was his driving skill to take him out of dodge.

This girl, she had to know something, even if it was just another lead he could chase. He wasn't going to waste it.

He had to fight against the stream as he climbed the stairs on the opposite end of the platform. He'd considered coming at her from behind, she'd have a harder time bolting over the platform, but he'd decided against it. Despite Frewer's assurance, he'd rather take a good look at her himself before he approached her.

Brenna was a frazzled-looking punk, looking older than she was through the traces meth left on her skin. He just hoped she wasn't too out of it to answer some questions.

A train came and spilled a crowd of people out on the platform, pinning him in place momentarily and he lost sight of her. He began pushing through the crowd, getting closer under its cover while it lasted, but the platform cleared fairly quickly. When he saw the girl again, she was talking to a man. His back was to Aiden and he didn't seem familiar.

Aiden edged forward slowly, putting an outdoor display between himself and the man, careful not to leave him or the girl out of his sight. They seemed to be talking, not handing anything off, but that could already have happened.

Could be nothing, Aiden told himself. Could be just some random acquaintance of the girl, her dealer, her pimp, whatever. Nothing to do with him and his money at all. He fished in his pocket and stilled when his hand closed around the flip-phone and the smarting reminder that he'd been stripped of most of his weapons. He was about to let it go, conceding defeat. Instead he pulled it out and called Frewer again, asking him to run Profiler.

_"Nothing," _Frewer said.

"Nothing?" Aiden asked back. "How can there be nothing?"

_"Profiler doesn't recognise him. It aborts the scan."_

"How's that possible?"

_"I don't know. I c-can look into it." _

The loudspeaker announced another train. He felt it come from behind, push the air ahead of it and it picked up his coat and whipped it around him. Ahead of him, the man gave the girl a wave, then turned away from her when the train rushed in.

"It's him," Aiden said, flipped the phone closed and withdrew, keeping the man in his line of sight from the side, making sure he really boarded the train. He was a little hard-pressed to explain _why _he was so certain, but only a proficient hacker would know how to cheat Profiler, especially on the level Frewer had mentioned.

People spilled out again and Aiden held himself solid against their onslaught, fixed on the other man. He wore his collar up, head tucked down, not enough of him to make out a face like that.

Aiden waited a long moment after the man had got on the train, making sure he didn't jump out again at the last minute. Keeping him in sight, Aiden picked his way along the aisle until he found a seat.

Aiden stepped inside the train and the doors snapped closed behind him. He leaned into the motion of the train as it accelerated, keeping his balance easily. The train wasn't too full, people standing around the doors, the odd empty seat along the way. Aiden picked a good place, gaze glued to the hacker, but only from the corner of his eyes, he didn't need to alert him, or anyone. He forced himself to appear relaxed, affected the vaguely bored expression of any commuter riding the train after a long workday.

Another stop, people rushing out, fewer new ones coming in. Aiden and his quarry stayed where they were. It went for a while, stop after stop as the train slowly emptied as it dropped off its passengers at their destinations.

The train shook to another stop and the phone began to ring in his pocket, it took Aiden by surprise and he startled. Fished the thing out, took a lengthy moment to remember how to switch it off. He caught an amused look from a teenager across the aisle.

More people getting on, this time, blocking his view and when it finally cleared, the man was gone.

Aiden cursed to himself. He pushed himself free and picked his way down the aisle, scanning the people. He had to lunge for a handhold when the train pulled into a hard left turn.

None of the people matched the stranger. He must have got off on the last stop. Because he'd spotted Aiden? Or simply because it was his regular stop?

Aiden stopped, one hand laid around the handhold. This wasn't good, his best lead and he let it get away from him as if he was an amateur. Maybe there was something about what these eco-cultists were saying. If you relied too much on your gadgets, you forgot to think for yourself. And look at him, the fucking poster boy for the sentiment, right about now.

The train jolted again and then, without any warning, it braked so hard, people were thrown from their seats and into each other. Aiden held himself upright, already knowing where this was going to go and then the lights went out.

He could sense the tension in the people around him, the sharply indrawn breaths, the helpless looks they'd cast around in the darkness. There was no light from the city outside, the entire block lost to a blackout.

Aiden took a step, it was as far as he got, before he felt the hard, unyielding pressure of a gun against the back of his head.

"I can't decide," a man said behind him. "Am I impressed you found me at all? Or am I disappointed at how long it took?"

Aiden held himself still. He knew the moment wouldn't last. Someone close by would pick up on this conversation and their eyes would adjust and they'd see. People would interfere, or panic and neither was going to help him, because he'd dropped the ball so hard it had gone right through the fucking floor.

The other hadn't really got off on the last station, he'd just circled back around.

"What do you want?" Aiden asked calmly.

The other man laughed. It was an adult voice, but young. From the angle of the gun barrel and the direction of the voice, Aiden guessed they'd be about the same height, give or take an inch.

"I've been studying you," the man explained, he sounded amused.

"Spending my money."

"I knew I had to give something," he said. Aiden felt the shrug through the metal. "Or you'd never know at all."

"Now what?" Aiden asked. "You're toying with me, but it looks like your game's about to end, one way or the other."

"Ah, come on? You give up so quickly? I expected better."

"Well," Aiden said. He shifted his feet slowly. Unless the other man was wearing goggles, he wouldn't be able to see any more than Aiden did, even if his eyes adjusted quicker or better. "I never said I give up."

"That's better. You know, what do you say, we take this somewhere more private? I'm sure you don't want an audience for when I wipe the floor with you."

Aiden dropped his hand from the pole he'd been holding. He probably wouldn't be fast enough to go for his gun and he knew nothing of his opponent's abilities, he didn't even know his face or his name. There was just nothing there. On the other hand, _he _must have been studying Aiden for weeks, if he had weaknesses, if he'd left himself open to anything, this man behind him would know them, perhaps better than he did himself.

"Yeah," Aiden said. "Let's go."

He took a step forward before the hacker behind him could react, though he heard the man's sharply indrawn breath, the admonition he was going to throw after him. Aiden didn't give him the chance.

He ducked down and turned around, out of range of the gun for only a moment. He reached for the arm that held it, but failed to get a good grip in the darkness and the hacker hadn't wasted time on surprise. Knowing he couldn't hit Aiden anymore, he just whipped the gun around and the metal punched hard along Aiden's jaw, send him reeling and he let himself go down briefly. It gave him the angle he needed to pull the baton from his pocket, enough space to swing it in an arc, make it expand and retaliate against the gun.

The hacker hissed when the gun was knocked from his hand, flew away somewhere and hit a window. The other hacker was skinnier than Aiden, he felt it when they collided, but strong enough to keep on his feet.

People's voices were branding up around them, finally suspecting what was going on, but too unsure of what to do. Aiden sensed and vaguely saw them move, scrambling away from them. Someone was yelling further down in the carriage. The mood was tipping.

It was a nightmare fight in the dark and the other hacker was a sinewy fighting machine, too tough to bent, too fast to outmanevoure and far too vicious to outlast. In the dark, Aiden lost the baton when it snagged on a pole in the constrained space of the train. He had to take too many hits, stumbling like a beginner in this dance, missing half the steps.

There came a pause, a moment of accidental respite when both their fumbling had driven them apart. By now, Aiden could see the other, if only as a tall, slim shade outlined in front of him. He straightened up when Aiden disengaged and made no move to follow.

"I see," the hacker said, still amused and just a little bit winded. "No privacy, then. You think you can take me?"

"I think you waste my time."

The other laughed, and launched himself at Aiden, unarmed, but just as hungry as before and perhaps he was seeing better than Aiden in the dark or perhaps he was just luckier, but he blocked Aiden's blows with an ease that should worry him, if he had time to spare. As it was, Aiden was forced back, step by step, or lose his footing entirely to one kick or another. Hard pressed for the first time in a fight, too many years since anyone got close enough for this kind of contest.

Aiden took a punch to the chest that knocked the breath from him, made him stagger for a moment and the other's hand was at his throat, foot making a sweep to get him down. Aiden lurched forward instead, into the hold at his throat. If they were going down, he was going to be on top, but the hacker's balance held, held them both in the end, which was probably not what he'd wanted.

Aiden couldn't bring his own gun to bear, too hard pressed to find the time and freedom of movement. Besides, if he fired a gun, the rest of the carriage _would _erupt into panic and he couldn't predict what would happen.

Aiden got a hand at his throat, felt the fingers dig into his skin, tearing at him rather than attempting to choke. Aiden smashed his elbow down on the other's arm, caught it when the grip relaxed and twisted the wrist until he heard a satisfying moan of pain from his opponent. Aiden used the moment, yanked the other around and threw him into the side of the carriage.

Someone — not the other man — screamed and Aiden saw someone kicking out at the both of them. Aiden gave the hacker a shove, made sure the kick got his face and the man snarled. He pushed himself up and snapped his head back so sharply, he caught Aiden's chin and then, brought his elbows back into his stomach, stepped into his knee.

Aiden staggered back, hissing himself like an angry animal. It felt like he might actually _lose_ and the taste of it was no better than it had ever been. He had to _take _too much, didn't give back enough. He couldn't see the other, not clearly enough and his vision seemed to lag behind. He tasted blood from a lip that split without him even noticing.

He got a punch in, at one point, ruptured the other's eyebrow, because that was the only explanation where all the blood was coming from, dripped on him when they collided again. His jaw _ached, _from the headbutt earlier, from a hit later. His knee wouldn't take his weight completely.

Behind them, he heard the slowly cresting wave of panic from the people. They'd withdrawn to the back of the carriage, trying to get away from the two fighting men.

The hacker downed him, for real this time, a missed step and flagging balance was all it took and the hacker smashed his head to the floor a few times, until the darkness around him began to swim uncertainly. Blood dripped down to his face and he scrambled for a hold along the other's arms, but found only the feeble hold of his shirt.

Distantly, he heard somebody yell, couldn't place it and the hacker's weight abruptly left him. Aiden blinked, confused momentarily, but he wasn't going to waste the chance. He leaned back up, managed to twist free and roll back to his feet. He stood breathing hard. A group of men filled the space in front of him, all yelling, hard to understand individually, but it boiled down to a 'stop this shit'.

Some detached themselves from the hacker and went for Aiden.

No, not like this, Aiden decided. He held out his arm to stop their advance, finally pulled the gun, held it over his head and fired into the roof. The bang was extraordinarily loud. The group of men twitched back, some calling to him to calm down, but it wasn't a concertred effort and everything blurred together in the dark.

Aiden brushed them aside and boxed his way to the hacker, as people scrambled to get out of his way. He whipped the hacker over the head with the gun and gripped his neck as he buckled. He'd thrown up a defending arm, tried another step into Aiden's already weak knee, but he'd been thrown off kilter and his earlier precision was out of his reach. Aiden caught the arm, twisted again, harder than before and he wasn't going to stop until the wrist snapped or the man curled down with the angle. Maybe he'd snap it anyway.

Aiden kicked the back of his knees, helped him down, used the hold on his neck to punch _him _into the edge of an armrest, then dragged him back up, slung an arm around his throat from behind and just held on with all his strength. He dragged them both a few steps, away from the group of men and other people.

The hacker made a few good attempts at getting out of the lock, struggling for all he was worth and snarling like a captured animal. He pretended to go limp, when he realised Aiden was stronger than him, but it was too early to be believable. Aiden found a door he could throw him into as punishment.

The groan he made sounded oddly broken, which was harder to fake. He wasn't unconscious, but he was obviously not getting up again, but struggling anyway.

Aiden stood away from him, regarded the man for a moment, then gave him a good kicked in the side. No defence reflex kicked in, no attempt to catch his foot and turn the move against him. The kick connected with the hacker's kidney and the man rolled in on himself.

Aiden dared look away from him, could just about make out the people at the end of the carriage.

"Stay where you are," Aiden growled and the group of men who had interfered earlier stilled their slow advance. "It doesn't concern you."

He doubted he'd get to command them for long. He needed to get out of here.

He found the emergency switch for the door, unlocked it and forced the doors open. Threw the other hacker out ahead of him, climbed down slowly himself, mindful of his body's state.

By the time he bent down to pick him back up, the man had mustered enough strength that he fought back, but he couldn't get the upper hand again, just made the first few yards of the slow walk a bigger pain. Aiden threw him down to the tracks, twice, to make his point and the man stopped trying after that.

It was a short walk to the next station, painful and somewhat awkward. Aiden had pacified the hacker by binding his hands and giving no quarter over the man's damaged wrist.

"You know," the man groaned as they walked. "I didn't think this was how it was going to go."

"Yeah," Aiden agreed. "I like this outcome better."

The man gargled a laugh. "But you didn't think you'd make it, right? I _had _you. If those dumbfucks hadn't pulled me off…"

"You'd have a bullet in the brain by now," Aiden finished through clenched teeth. It was all he could do not to put him down there and then, just for messing with him at all. He needed answers, though, and an explanation what this was about, how deep it went.

Besides, he didn't feel charitable enough to offer a quick death.

They reached the station. It was mostly empty, people seemed to have abandoned it as the blackout lasted. Speaking of which, ctOS backups should have kicked in by now. Whatever the hacker had done seemed to be lasting. If nothing else, Aiden definitely wanted what the man was using.

Aiden's ancient phone picked up no carrier, unsurprisingly, but the darkness actually helped him move around undisturbed, despite looking like he'd picked a fight and lost.

Some moderate chaos had descended on the streets, but this was a mostly peaceful neighbourhood, a blackout wouldn't push it over the edge.

Without his phone, Aiden was forced to to search a while until he found a car old enough he could hotwire it the old-fashioned way. He pushed the hacker down in the passenger seat.

The man had held his silence after their brief exchange on the train tracks. He sniggered sometimes, observing Aiden with a kind of condescending amusement, but he didn't comment on it.

As they drove, he finally chose to break his silence and say, "Now what?"

"You don't want to know," Aiden said darkly.

The hacker chuckled and said nothing more.

Eventually, they got back into a district where the lights worked and traffic was normal. Aiden pulled the phone from his pocket and called Frewer, who sounded close to hysterics after he'd lost sight of Aiden in the blackout.

Aiden listened to him for a while, then interrupted when he realised Frewer wouldn't stop on his own. He told him to set up one of the containers as impromptu prison, they'd need it.

They stopped at a traffic light and Aiden used the chance to finally get a good look at the hacker. His face was battered from the fight, blood crusted down the side of his face, bruises forming along his jaw, but despite that…

It took Aiden a long minute until it registered, the familiarity of the features, though he hadn't seen him in many years. The sharp eyes and ironically curved mouth, even if he'd always looked more like his mother.

The traffic lights changed, brushed bright orange briefly through the dusty windshield, followed by harsh green, painting his face.

Aiden felt himself go still, disconnected from the world, reduced to this moment in the car with the too bright green light and the seething anger at the back of his head and the the slow-burning pain in his body. He'd considered many things, even Defalt had been more likely than this. Preferable, too, for many reason.

"And so he recognises me," Marcus Brenks said and grinned as if he'd still won some kind of victory.

Behind them, the first driver found the horn and started to abuse it.

* * *

_End of _Harbinger – Part 2_

* * *

**Author's Note:** I'm sorry for everyone who expected or hoped for Defalt. Until I hear something else from canon, I'll assume he really is dead. Besides, I'm not particularly confident I can write him well and I kind of hated his guts in the game anyway.

A case could be made for Marcus actually having his mother's surname, but for the sake of recognition value, Brenks it is.

* * *

**Revised on 01/June/2015**


	23. Harbinger - Part 3

**Author's Note: **I swear, I mistyped DedSec in some way every time it came up. DedSex was the most fun, but I've also had DeadSec and DecSed.

I seem to derive some sadistic pleasure from listing Aiden's crimes to him.

* * *

_**Harbinger – Part 3**

* * *

Aiden tossed Marcus into the wall of the metal container, too rough perhaps, but it was the best he could do when he had to hold himself back from inflicting more permanent damage. He frisked him methodically, picking out two phones, brass knuckles, some spare ammo and a wallet full of blank cards.

After, he threw Marcus into the gaping blackness of the container. He hadn't bothered to check whether Frewer had added or removed any furnishings, but he didn't care either way.

Marcus landed with a thud, audibly failed to suppress a groan, but rolled back to his feet with the speed and careless grace of any practised fighter, willing and able to keep going even when his body started to fail. He was too far to cross the distance and take Aiden by surprise and stopped himself dead right in front of him.

"Oh come on," Aiden sneered. "Giving up so fast?"

He had the other's measure now, he wasn't going to make the same mistake again or underestimate him. Marcus had had one chance to take him out and he hadn't come through. There would not be another.

Some distant lamp shed enough light to make out the way Marcus twisted his mouth into a smirk. "I need medical care," he said. "And some painkillers. Maybe a drink."

"Those are privileges," Aiden said. "You've got to earn them."

He stepped back, was in no mood to give Marcus any more chance to play out his farce, whatever his point was. Aiden slammed the door closed, checked the lock to make sure it was secure.

He stomped over to Frewer's container, knocked and was let in without the usual dance from Frewer.

Not much later, he sat on the edge of Frewer's bunk bed, the contents of a first aid kit strewn around the mattress by his side. He'd disinfected and bandaged what he could, downed a handful of painkillers in the process. He was vaguely disappointed Frewer hadn't offered the bottle of gin Aiden saw peeking from behind a computer case on a shelf, but he wasn't going to ask for it.

It wasn't the first time he'd been beaten up, he tended to heal quickly, but that knee was going to be a problem for a while. He should probably take it to a real doctor soon, get it x-rayed just to be sure. For now, the tight bandage he'd wrapped around it lessened the strain enough and he could move without much of a limp. If he had to, he could fake being entirely healthy, too. There was no such thing as a bite inhibition in the circles he moved in.

Marcus Brenks, Damien's son, of all people, out for his blood. The last time he'd seen him, Marcus had been a teenager. He'd come to hang around after school sometimes, when his mother was still at work and Damien and Aiden could afford to let him stick around.

He'd been a clever kid and as far as Aiden could tell, the best of both his parents. Damien had never wanted him anywhere anything illegal, some silent accord with his wife that Aiden wasn't privy to. She had left Damien over his career choices shortly after Aiden had met him, but she was fine with Marcus seeing him as long as Marcus was kept away from the dirt.

She had left Chicago soon after Damien's attack, perhaps out of fear, or perhaps she'd been threatened, Aiden didn't know. He'd made sure she knew about Damien's death, though he'd been sparse with the details.

"Uh…" Frewer said and Aiden looked up. "DedSec wants to talk to you."

"Sure, talk," Aiden said. "Keep the cameras off."

_"Aiden Pearce… we hear you have something that belongs to us." _

"I don't know what you're talking about," Aiden said.

_"There was an incident today on the L." _

"What's it to you?"

_"One of our members was involved."_

"Here's the thing," Aiden said. "Anyone who puts a gun to my head, _automatically_ belongs to me."

_"We would prefer if you released him unharmed."_

"Unharmed will be a problem," Aiden said. He put the first aid kit away and got up, walked until he stood right behind Frewer. He spotted the input from Marcus' phone on one monitor, but had no time to pay it much attention. "Let me make this perfectly clear. You keep your geeky little fingers out of it. You don't want to mess with me on this."

_"We protect our own. You'd do well to remember that."_

Aiden sighed, made sure it was loud enough for the mic to pick it up. "He came after me, he made it my business and I'm taking care of it. Be grateful if I decide you didn't have anything to do with it."

_"We do not like to be threatened."_

"That's something we have in common."

DedSec didn't answer immediately. Then, _"Marcus Brenks is important to us. What do you want in exchange?"_

Aiden considered. He couldn't be sure how much of this was Marcus' personal vendetta and how much might be DedSec finally moving against him. They _seemed_ to be only interested in getting Marcus back, but you could never be sure with DedSec and their stupid little games. He needed to know a great deal more before he committed to anything at all.

"I'll get back to you," Aiden said, reached past Frewer before the man had a chance to react, and cut the connection.

Aiden stepped back from Frewer, who turned in his seat to look up at him.

"Marcus Brenks?" he asked, but in a tone that implied he already knew.

"Damien's son," Aiden confirmed. "I never…" He stopped himself, not sure what he was going to say. _I never expected him to come after me? _Why? Because he somehow held the patent on avenging dead family members? Because Marcus had been a nice kid, once? Because he had been buying into his own legend a little too much lately?

"Can you look him up? I want to know what he's been up to the last few years."

Frewer turned back to his computer without any enthusiasm. "I don't want to mess with DedSec," he muttered. "I can't threaten… threaten them l-like you do."

"They are mostly bark," Aiden assured him. "Very little bite."

"Easy for you to say."

* * *

The metal door of the container screamed and hissed as Aiden pushed it open. Silvery morning sun spilling in around him, cast his shadow, elongated and dark across the container's bare floor and equally bare walls. It was empty, except for the dirt.

Marcus had curled up in a corner, his back pressed against it, wrapped into his jacket as well he could. He stirred, raised his hand against the light and struggled into a sitting position. He had worked the ties on his hands loose.

A cold night and an already battered body had left him stiff and slow. He leaned his back against the wall, legs extended in front of him. He let his head loll back as he watched Aiden walk inside.

"Look at you, the infamous vigilante of Chicago," Marcus greeted him.

Aiden set the chair he carried down, back to front and sat down, arms curled over the back, the sun still behind him, hiding his face and expression. Hiding the marks Marcus had left there, too, but that didn't matter because they both knew they were there.

"Not so dangerous without your poisoned fangs, are you?" Marcus continued. "Or maybe it's just that you're getting old. Things aren't as easy as they used to be, are they? All that running and fighting, do you feel it in your joints? And the technology, oh, the technology! Advancing ever faster and it's so hard to keep up sometimes, isn't it?"

"Doing good enough to catch you," Aiden said. "What do you want? Revenge?"

"Maybe," Marcus said in a mocking sing-sang tone. "Would it be so outlandish? Surely I can't be the first one. In fact, I _know _I'm not. I've been all over your things for weeks. I know. Didn't you think that was strange?"

"What do you mean?"

"So many people, calling for your blood."

Marcus made a limp gesture with one hand. He kept the other cradled close to his chest, the wrist Aiden had nearly broken the night before.

Marcus added, "Or is it that common for you?"

"There's always someone," Aiden said slowly, giving nothing away. "I'm worth much more dead than alive to a lot of people."

"No," Marcus said and grinned. "Someone like me. Someone for whom it's personal."

Aiden shifted a little, put his head to the side. "Why don't you just say what you want to say."

Marcus' grin widened, baring his teeth. He flexed his shoulders against the wall as if he contemplated leaping up. "Do you know what it feels like?" he asked then, not looking directly at Aiden. "It's like an itch, you can't scratch it, but you know what it needs to go away."

He looked back at Aiden. "DedSec recruited me, you know. They offered. They thought I'd be good at this. They got a lot of files on Dad, I know what he did. I know what _you _did, too. And I found this… thing… this snippet of information, buried deep. DedSec doesn't have a whole lot on it, or else they're hiding it even from me, but when I found it, everything made sense."

He leaned forward, eyes wide in the sunlight, "You know about bellwether, don't you?"

"Yes," Aiden said and his voice sounded rough, pushed to the edge from one moment to the next and although he hadn't moved again, his form seemed suddenly tensely coiled, locked between the instinct of fight or flight, despite or because of who he was.

Marcus sniggered. "Imagine you're Blume. You're a mostly benevolent company who wants to _spread_ that benevolence across the world. It could be worse, we've had a lot of dictators who'd do a much worse job than Blume. But there's this guy running wild, playing with all your stuff, soiling everything and you can't catch him. What do you do, if you're Blume and that damned vigilante just doesn't know when to quit?"

"You're saying they used bellwether," Aiden said slowly. "They used bellwether to influence people against me?"

Marcus exaggerated a shrug. "People with a grievance," he corrected. "I looked at what you do_. _I guess you think you're the hero."

"I don't think like that anymore," Aiden said and the shadow on his face gave nothing away.

"Well, no need to convince me," Marcus assured him. "I never believed it. I mean, I don't know what precise mental illness you have, but you're quite the piece of work."

Marcus moved up along the wall, pushed his shoulders back into the metal as he stood up. The sunlight crawled over his face, the condescending smile and for just a moment, despite the distance of time and the engravings of a whole different life, he looked just like his father. Then, his face was in shadow, levelling the playing field.

"You're a terrorist, you destroy lives," Marcus wagged his hand vaguely. "And what's the good you do? It usually doesn't go down without a few explosions or multi-car pileups and there's probably a cop graveyard just for you somewhere. How do you even sleep at night?"

"You were telling me about bellwether."

"Ah, yes, well, what it means is, there's potentially a city full of people who _kind of _want to hurt you. And that's what bellwether does, it just finds these people, gives them a little push until they're moving in the right direction. Most just break themselves on you, of course. Look at you, you didn't even notice. Don't think I misjudged you, I was planning to do this slowly. You got lucky, that's all. I wasn't ready for you on the train. I didn't expect you and when you were there, I couldn't _stop._"

The scorn bled into his amused voice, coloured it dark and ugly as the faint echo beat back and forth in the empty container. He laughed, suddenly and it sounded almost self-depreciating.

"You taught me to fight," Marcus said. "Not the real thing, I know, but you showed me a couple self-defence moves in Dad's living room? Made me feel like a badass. And I used them against a bully at my school. I felt great."

"Am I getting this straight?" Aiden asked slowly. If the memory affected him at all, it didn't show. "You _realised_ you were being brainwashed?"

"Oh yeah, eventually," Marcus nodded. "Right now, I really want to go for your throat, but I know better. You're not as good as you think, but I always knew I couldn't just march up to you and beat you down. That wasn't gonna work, so I used what DedSec gave me. I figured you out."

"Why wouldn't you try to resist?"

Marcus seemed to find the question quite entertaining. He slipped down the wall again a little as he laughed. "I didn't want to, why would I? You killed my father."

"He left me no choice," Aiden growled.

"See, two months ago, maybe I'd have believed that, because DedSec sort of respects you and doesn't want to step on you toes, so their information on you is limited. But I've seen _all _your shit. And let me tell you, Dad was an asshole, but so are you. You're as guilty as he ever was. If he deserved to die, so do you."

"How can you tell?" Aiden asked. "How do you know that's what you want? Could be just bellwether putting ideas in your head. Can't be comfortable knowing someone's messing around in there."

"Yeah," Marcus agreed, seemed thoughtful for a moment. "But then, I can't solve it, obviously. Maybe I'm brainwashed to hell and back and I can't even fight it. Or _maybe _you are just a very sorry excuse for a human being and it's about time someone gives you the mercy killing you really need."

Aiden pulled back a little in his seat. The sun had climbed higher by now, shortened the shadows even as the light began to fill the container with a murky gloom. Not enough to see clearly by, but enough to see the tense set of his shoulders and the way he relaxed his left leg.

"What am I going to do with you?" he asked.

"You've got to ask? You'll kill me. You have to," Marcus sniggered. "Maybe I'm going to be the corpse that finally doesn't let you sleep. There's got to be a threshold _somewhere_."

"Frewer worked on bellwether, I think, perhaps he knows a way to reverse the effects."

"Oh, really?" Marcus sneered. "Trying to save me? No, you don't get to do that. Think of it like this, I've been fed spoonfuls of kool-aid for a long time without realising it. If I _had _known what was going on, I'd have downed the whole damn bottle on my own."

Marcus pushed himself free from the wall, took a step more into the light and held himself there, soaking up the warmth. He took another step and he was fully in the light, beaten and bruised face, torn and dirty clothes, vicious little smile.

He kept walking as he spoke, slowly picking up speed as his muscles warmed to the movement, picking up glitter in his eyes from the light and rage from his own words.

"Come on, shoot me!" he demanded. "Like you do everyone! Because I _swear to you, _on my father's grave, on _all _the graves, I swear, I will never stop. I'll hunt you _forever. _It's in my head. I didn't put it there, but it sure as hell isn't going away. I _want _this. I need to see you broken beyond help or hope. I need nothing else in my life more than your death! I'm not, ever, going to stop coming after you, if you let me live. Do you understand? It's here!" He rapped his knuckles on the side his head. "So deep, I can feel it! Like I can hear your blood beating in your veins and I have to make it _stop." _

He dropped his arms by his side, watched Aiden. Half the length of the container was still between them. Aiden hadn't moved, not to defend or to attack. He'd only leaned his head back a little so he could watch Marcus better.

"But do you know what else?" Marcus asked and bared his teeth."I _want _to, too. You _know, _don't you? I've seen the notes you keep on your marks, the people you blackmail and threaten and use, before you waste them or throw them away. You know the limits of manipulation. This," he waved his arm. "This illusion of free will we have? It's our limit. You can't get anyone, ever, to do something they truly don't want to. So it's easy. _I _was easy. Hell, I didn't fight back at all. They were just giving me what I wanted anyway! All bellwether did was tell me I could do it. Looks like it lied, but it was a good one. That's where we are_. _I lost, I get it, but the drive is still there and it won't go away. So do what you must. Spare me in some misguided moment of compassion, the one you didn't have when you gunned down my father. You'll pay if you do, you know. I'll get the better of you. Maybe not today, but give it a few years. Time will be cruel on you and one day, you'll be vulnerable and weak and truly old and I'll still be at the top of my game."

"You're asking me to kill you," Aiden said, very calmly.

"No," Marcus shook his head emphatically. "I'm telling you what'll happen if you don't. I don't want to die, but I'm not delusional."

Aiden tilted his head to the side, seemed to be listening to something outside. After a moment, Marcus stilled in concentrated silence.

"Do you hear the humming?" he asked. "You're window's closing."

Aiden didn't react immediately. He let the moment hang there, let it stretch to the breaking point while the distant humming deepened and split into the roar of engines and something else, thinner and higher, riding above the noise.

Marcus took another step and Aiden jumped into action without preamble or warning. Off from chair, he kicked it aside, crossed the space to Marcus and gripped him by the collar, dragged back until he could slam him into the wall, gun drawn and ready, muzzle pressed hard to the soft tissue under Marcus' jaw.

Frewer's voice dropped into the container, preceding him.

"Aiden! They're here! They're _here!"_

'They' could mean anything, coming from Frewer. Aiden tightened the finger on the trigger, saw the odd eagerness in Marcus' face and he yanked away from him abruptly, tossed him away and hurried outside.

A pack of cars drove up to them, spread out like a fan to close all roads, kicking up clouds of dust as they braked in the open space between the containers. There was nothing immediately recognisable about the cars, different types and class, normal license plates. The men who got out of the cars were heavily armed, though, some geared up as if they were heading into a war-zone. Fixers or Blume Corporate Police, it was hard to be certain. Three small black drones hovered above the cars.

Aiden stopped dead, caught Frewer's gaze from a few feet away, where the other man had also stopped, breathing hard. He snapped his hands up high in the air without being prompted.

Aiden waited until one of the men sought out his gaze, moved his gun and Aiden raised his hands slowly, letting his gun hang from a finger casually. He looked away from the men and at the drones instead. They were too small to be armed, meant for surveillance. One of them detached itself from the others, hovered down and stopped in front of Aiden.

It projected a DedSec avatar into the air between them. Trust DedSec to waste resources on toys like that, it always gave them away.

_"We are taking back what you owe us." _

Aiden said nothing. From the corner of his eyes, he saw one of the armed men go to the container and after a moment, Marcus joined him. They argued briefly and Marcus tried to go for the man's gun, but was rebuffed. The man closed his hand around Marcus' arm and dragged him back to the car.

_"We will not work with you anymore," _DedSec declared. _"You would be wise to stay away from us, too."_

"He's worth that much to you?" Aiden asked.

The fixer had got Marcus into a car, he and three others climbed back in themselves, started the car and turned it around, drove away. Marcus had been right, the window was closing fast.

DedSec didn't deign to answer. The hologram shut down and the drone flew away, after the car with Marcus.

Aiden was aware of Frewer not far away, he could almost see the man shiver in agitation or fear or a bit of both. He counted four other cars, fifteen men, armed to the teeth. No doubt Blume was watching by now, unless Frewer had done something to keep them in the dark.

Aiden found one of the fixers, picked at random, stared him down until the man flinched almost imperceptibly and the motion went through the others, a minuscule distraction as their comrade's alarm drew their attention. Aiden's moment to move, if he meant to move at all.

He jump-started, brought the gun down and spun it back into his hand, took aim as he ran and fired three shots, it was all he had time for, saw the men fall as if their strings had been cut. He collided with another, smashed the flat of his free hand upward on his chin, gripped the barrel of his gun and pulled it out of his hand. He used the gun to pull them both around, get him between himself and some of the other, felt the impact of their bullets on the fixer's own vest.

Aiden dropped the man, saw what he needed in the hands of another fixer and flew at him, tore the rifle from him. He had no time to waste on the others. He jumped on the nearest car, only took the time to glance back at Frewer to shout, "Jam the bridge! Frewer! Jam the bridge!"

He didn't look to see if Frewer did as he was told, if he _could _or if one of the gunshots he heard behind him had taken the old programmer down. Aiden jumped to the ground, hit it running and sprinted the short distance to another container. He shouldered the rifle and scaled the container, felt the impacts of bullets just beneath his feet.

He ran along on top of the container, climbed onto another at the end. It was as far and as high as he could get, but it was enough to see the bridge leading off the island swing away from the island and lock itself in the middle.

The car swerved to a halt at the last moment.

Aiden threw himself down, set up the rifle with deft movements, leaned in behind the scope and brought it around until the car was in his crosshairs. Neither the men nor Marcus were getting out. A quick sweep revealed that the bridge wasn't steady, but swung this way and that under contradictory input.

Aiden took several deep breaths, steadied himself in the scant seconds he had. He took aim again, held his breath and fired. Once, twice, three shots in quick succession. The bullets punched through the hood of the car, getting lost within the engine and _tore through the tank. _

If there was a delay, then only in the perception of those waiting and watching before the gas ignited and the car went up in a fireball and the bang of the detonation ruptured the air around it. The was propelled to the side, rolled and smashed into a steel pillar, deformed around it. It slithered a little further before it stopped, burning black metal in a circle of tiny sparks, setting the dry gras around it on fire.

Aiden picked himself up and climbed down, didn't look back to the others, he could take care of them later. The jog up the path to the bridge reminded with cruel delay of his damaged knee and all the other minor wounds he'd sustained recently. There'd come a time when he wouldn't be able to just ignore these things and keep going, Marcus was right. He'd need to change the way he operated, if he meant to stay ahead. Today, however, he just went anyway, pushed through.

He slowed down as he approached the burning car. The flames still eating around the frame of it. He spotted one the fixers trying to crawl out of a broken window, visible skin badly burned, one arm mangled in a bloody mess.

Aiden circled around the car and stopped.

Marcus had got further than the others. The blast had seared one half of his face, burned some of his clothes. His legs seemed not to be working properly, but whether just from pain or from some worse wound was impossible to tell. Marcus seemed to have given up trying to get further away and lay on his side, turned back to look at the burning car.

As Aiden approached, Marcus seemed to relax, turned his strangely pensive gaze away from the fire and at Aiden.

"Like father, like son?" Marcus said. His voice was rough, charred vocal chords perhaps, burned all the way down to his lungs and his breathing was laboured. "Good job."

Aiden felt the heat of the flames bite through his clothes, uncomfortably close. He crouched down by Marcus' side, after a moment, he crossed his legs and sat, looking past Marcus.

"You asked for it," he said.

"No," Marcus laughed and then lost the laugh in a cough. "It's all on you."

"There was another way."

Marcus laughed again, closed his eyes when he couldn't breath after that. "A way you didn't choose."

Aiden looked down at him, traced the numerous wounds with his gaze, gauged their severity. "You could live," he said then.

"What for?" Marcus asked back, his voice had degraded to a whisper. A gust of wind picked at the flames, drew them higher into the sky, demonic glow sheathed in pitch-black smoke. It drew Aiden's gaze away from the young man, made him watch the sparks as they danced and died.

"Is it still itching?" he asked.

Marcus chortled, curled in on himself as he did. "So very _very _badly," he rasped, but the laugh faded away, ended in scorched gargle.

There was movement around them. The other fixers circling them from a save distance, some of them pulling their other comrades from the wreckage, but none came close and none of them raised their guns at Aiden's seated form, leaving him be.

Aiden looked down at Marcus, after he hadn't said anything else in a while. Marcus was still alive, but drifting or already unconscious, perhaps succumbing under shock in addition to all his other wounds.

Aiden pulled himself to his feet, through the debilitating pain in his knee and turned to face the fixers. The drone was back, circled him once, seemed to survey the wreckage and the broken men around it, then stopped in front of Aiden.

He looked back at it, dropped his hands into his pockets, held himself casually disaffected by what had happened.

The projected avatar of DedSec said, _"How many lives does a fox have?"_

Another time, Aiden could have ripped through the distortion to hear the real, feeble voice of whoever was speaking. He could have dismantled the ridiculous digital mask DedSec used, reminded them of why they didn't use those things when talking with him. He could have made the drones drop from the sky like flies at the swipe of a finger. He still had Frewer's flip-phone in his pocket, but it could do none of those things.

"I have no idea," Aiden answered. "I'll just take your shares when I run out."

He strode past the drone, dismissed it. DedSec _could _force the confrontation, there really was only way for it to go, but if nothing else, they liked their drama and their posturing, they liked making the big gestures.

The fixers got out of his way as he approached them, guided by the distorted voice in the ear-pieces, no doubt.

Only when he'd passed through them did he stop, if only briefly. Glanced over his shoulder at the sorry bunch of them. He considered saying something, just so he didn't just have the last word, but to drive it home. He didn't, though, it didn't seem to matter too much.

He was making a mistake, he knew and it was far from the first since this entire episode began. Marcus wasn't dead, or at least not dead enough. If the fixers moved quickly, they could still save him. He should have finished it, severed that loose end instead of just letting go. But it'd be a waste, wouldn't it, of both talent and legacy. Someone had _done _this to Marcus, someone was responsible and deserved death far more.

He kept walking, through the pain in his leg which he wouldn't show, and pushed forward by the heat at his back from the burning car. Marcus had been indadvertedly right, there had to be a line somewhere, even for him and because there was no authority other than him, he'd have to set that line himself.

* * *

_End of _Harbinger_

* * *

**Reference: **Aiden's "I'll just take your shares" is paraphrased from Sayikui Reload: Burial by Kazuya Minekura: _"Whoever wants to die first, come and attack me. I will live. I will live your shares of lives as well."_

The 'how many lives does a fox have' line seems entirely too clever to come from me, I can't seem to track it, though.

* * *

**Author's Note: **I wrote this basically in one go and I loved it to little bits. Now, with some distance, I'm not so sure of it anymore. I may have overdone it a bit. Go figure.

* * *

**Let me take this opportunity to thank the fantastic people who keep leaving me reviews! You rock!**


	24. Nightcall: Confirmation Bias

**Another Overtly Long Author's Note: **Aiden and Poppy fall into bantering incredibly quickly, so I pruned the dialogue ruthlessly. It's actually a bit annoying, but I think maybe I'm just incredibly wary of Poppy becoming some kind of Mary Sue by accident. Someone tell me if that happens and I don't seem to notice, I have pitchforks and flamethrowers ready!

This is basically The Domestic Chapter(TM) of Brilliancy and it's giving me a bad toothache. Normally, I'd never write it, but since I put myself up to this relationship stuff, I've got to go through with it. The alternative is taking down all of Nightcall and the thought doesn't really appeal, either.

Aiden _does _have that softer side, it's about time he gets to show it (we've had a bit much on jerk Aiden recently, not like that's a bad thing, but still…) Regardless, Poppy certainly deserves a break after everything that's happened to her.

The technobabble probably won't make up for any of the fluff.

* * *

**_Nightcall: Confirmation Bias**

* * *

"Aiden? Can I ask you something?"

_"Sure, anything."_

"I saw a doctor today and, well, it seems the tracking devise can't be removed. Its particles are too small, they've migrated from the colour in the skin to the spine. Trying to remove them would risk doing severe damage and there's almost no way to get them all. Makes sense, in a way, from a business point of view. Make it impossible to remove, even if a girl gets away. My boss wants me to check in with Blume. They're the experts on these things, but can I really trust them?"

_"Believe it or not, but most of Blume's employees are normal people, just doing their job."_

"Yes, maybe. But do you have any idea what that tracker means to me? It's the leash I could never slip, no matter what I did, no matter how clever or fast I was, I was never going to get away from the Club as long as that thing was still live. I want it _gone!_ Hack it out with a kitchen knife if I have to_._"

_"I'd rather you didn't."_

"I know it's gut response and I'm telling myself to do the smart thing and keep it there. But if it's gonna stay, I want to be absolutely sure it won't do anything anymore."

_"It's Blume's area of expertise. Let them do the job and I can check up on it."_

"Can you guarantee me that you'll spot everything they could do?"

_"If you want a real expert, I've got one. Knows Blume better than they do themselves, but I need to get a hold of him first. All right, I can take a look at it. Can't promise you more than that before I know what I'm looking at. I'll text you an address and you come by. Is that okay?" _

"Yes, thanks. Can I come by right now?"

_"Yeah, I'm here all day." _

"All day? Shouldn't you be roaming the streets?"

_"Roaming cyberspace."_

"More than one way to take down your enemies, is it?"

_"Staying ahead in an arms race."_

"Am I disturbing you?"

_"Not at all." _

* * *

Aiden had turned around in his chair after buzzing Donna in and now watched her as she picked her away across the airy living room.

Donna walked into his apartment like an oversized cat, cautious yet curious. Casual poise she didn't seem to be aware she even possessed, so deeply ingrained, so much part of her, like she didn't even care she had it. He kept looking at her while she took in the room, sharp eyes scanning the high ceiling and wide space, the way she drank in the admittedly gorgeous view of the lake through the windows.

When her gaze finally settled on him, she smirked. "Do you realise you've got a porter downstairs?"

"Yeah, I noticed the guy hanging around a lot, now it makes sense."

She dropped her handbag on the sofa, leaned her hip against its side. She said, "Isn't that dangerous? He could record all your comings and goings. What if he recognises you?"

"Well, firstly, he's never seen me, there's an elevator from the garage right to this floor and secondly, in the event that he decides something's fishy with Mr. Ralph Kelley, business headhunter, I've got enough dirt on him to ruin his life and career ten times over."

She arched her eyebrows, but didn't comment further. Instead she slipped out of her jacket and dropped it over her bag before she finally walked over to him with a smile on her face. It stayed there quite firmly as she bent forward to kiss him, supporting herself with a hand on his shoulder.

Aiden pulled back from her before their lips met, a frown tightened the muscles of his face. Something had been off, but he hadn't been able to identify it across the room and through a layer of perfectly applied makeup. This close, however, the bruise around one eye and on her cheekbone was too obvious to miss. It must be a few days old, swelling already very faint.

He put two fingers to the side of her chin and turned her head, ignoring the grimace she pulled.

"What happened?"

"Got this pimp in the station," she explained. She stayed for a moment, but then straightened away from him and returned the few steps to the sofa, leaning on its side and crossing her arms over her chest. "He's running teenaged girls, but his partner got them stashed away when he was arrested. Pimp wouldn't talk to the cops."

"So they hung you out for bait?"

"No," she corrected, more bite than he thought was necessary. "I _volunteered_. It worked, we found the girls. He just didn't like me very much."

"Your colleagues shouldn't have let it happen."

"No one was letting anything happen, it's my job and sometimes it gets a bit rough. You probably had your share of black eyes."

It took him a moment to let go of the anger in his throat and find some imitation of a smile. "More than I'd like," he said. "I hope you hit back."

It was Donna's turn to take her moment, obviously considering her answer. He didn't know what he expected, but what he _got _was one of her hands fisting into his hair and tipping his head back and giving him a real kiss, all hot lips and sliding tongue, clearly determined not to stop until she'd sucked all the breath from him.

When she pulled back, she grinned, "I always give as good as I get."

"I can tell."

He leaned his head into her hand, but then gave his chair a little shove so it rotated away from her. "Let's look at that tracking devise."

It was easy to pick up the signal. He hadn't had time to do anything properly to it and it must have a self-repair component, because it had undone his scrambling signal and the tracking devise was working at full strength. He was about to tell her as much, but then decided against it. The devise was making her uncomfortable enough as it was. Besides, he was going to turn it off, anyway. No reason to disturb her.

Lacking a chair, Donna had sat down on the desk at his side, leaning forward to watch the data spool down on his central monitor. Her legs swung back and forth, but she was otherwise still, attention entirely captured. A thin, worried line had formed between her eyes. Watching her from the corner of his eyes, he could tell she wanted to ask question, but didn't want to interrupt.

The signal strength itself was more limited than he had expected. On its own, it might cover a housing block, no more, not a very effective cage on its own.

Nevertheless, it was a cunning piece of nano-tech. Not _one_ sender, but several dozen of them, networked together to achieve both computing power and signal strength. Their migration within the body probably wasn't intentional, though he was no expert on such things, he was fairly sure the separate pieces would eventually be too far apart to maintain their function.

He didn't tell her _that, _either, because he had absolutely no idea how to predict the span it would take. Longer than she'd like, however, which was an easy guess to make.

Cracking the devise's code was going to be a whole lot harder than that. It looked like Blume work, but nothing he'd ever seen before. Had Quinn really had the pull to make them hand over something this sophisticated? Just so he could keep track of the meat in his slave trade?

"Well?" Donna asked. "You've been staring at it for five minutes now. Something wrong?" She frowned again. "More wrong," she corrected with a slight grimace. She rubbed her hand over the tattoo as she spoke, then flexed her neck and took her hand away when she noticed.

"I was thinking," he said, looked away from the monitor to focus on her. "It's definitely Blume work, I recognise some of it. And the tracker is pretty clever, it latches onto a cellphone signal if it can find one to expand its own transmission range. It defaults to ctOS, but it can use pretty much any frequency."

She tensed, trying to keep her bearing and appear unaffected when she was obviously anything but. She looked back at the code, dug her gaze into it as if she hoped making the screen implode would help her.

"Can you turn it off?"

"Yes… I think."

He knew perfectly well it wasn't what she wanted to hear, or what she _needed_. The look she gave him was a mixture of accusation and disappointment, her imagination already working overdrive, trying to figure out how to tackle life with the tracking devise inside her body.

"You _think_?"

"It doesn't have an off switch. I'd have to write it myself and patch it in with the original programme code, like a virus." He considered for a moment. "It's going to take a while and I'll need you to stick around. I can run some baseline tests on a simulation, but in the end, I still need you here to implement it and make it work. If you have time…"

Her expression hardened. "Do it right now," she said. She slipped from the desk. "I'll just call in sick. It's not far from the truth."

She went over to the sofa, fished her phone from her bag.

He turned back to the screen, listened with one ear to the call she made. If he was entirely honest, it was a source of private amusement to know she spent her days working with the very same people — or near enough — who would give their right arm to bring him down. That her life straddled some dangerous contradictions didn't seem to have occurred to her yet.

"You can turn on some music if you like, it won't disturb me."

Meanwhile, he put most of his running operations on halt. He was likely to need whatever computing power he could squeeze out of his system, just for the analysis of the code alone. The only thing he left running were his immediate security measures, the surveillance feed from the high-rise's lobby and garage, the access to the elevator and the search he had on the police database.

He sent a message to T-Bone, just in case he needed his input. He didn't know where T-Bone was or what he was up to, but he got a response almost immediately. _Hit me, _the message said.

Behind him, Donna was finished with her call. He sensed her stand there, unsure of what to do now. He listened for her, paying the code only some cursory attention. He heard her kick off her shoes and heard her pad bare-feeted over the wooden floor. After a moment, she turned on the radio, flipping through the channels rapidly, then back into silence.

She elected instead to find her way to the kitchen, somehow managed not to complain about the fact that he subsisted on energy drinks, beer and delivery service. She found what she needed to make coffee, though, and dropped a steaming cup off by his side without comment, but with a lingering look over the data on his monitors.

#

Dissembling the programme code working at the heart of the tracking devise took the better part of the afternoon. He'd originally thought it would be fairly easy to just introduce an error in the code, cause it to shut down on its own, but it turned out, the self-repair inevitably always kicked in. The best he seemed to be able to do was get it to shut off temporarily. Several weeks, according to the simulation, but after that, the tracker would be back and doing what it was meant to do.

He'd considered attacking it on the ctOS end of things, make ctOS reject the signal and at least prevent the tracker from using it as carrier, but it'd leave the tracker itself in working order. Not exactly what Donna wanted, but better than nothing.

Together, it was more of a hot-fix than an actual solution.

Maybe T-Bone could come up with something better in time.

The last problem that presented itself was to get the new code to implement at all. The tracking devise was a sender, never meant to receive any data at all. It just constantly phoned home any opportunity it got. There was no need for updates while the self-repair worked and no business reason why it would need to receive any other input. After a few attempts, he finally got one of his wifi bugs to play nice with the tracker.

It had grown dark by then, though a slim glimmer of silver still hovered on the horizon over the lake, a seam splitting apart between pitch-black water and a quickly overclouding sky.

The only light came from the monitors, the apartment was left in darkness otherwise. He swivelled his chair, got up and took his phone from its place on the desk, stood still until his eyes had adjusted and he could make out the bulk of the sofa at he centre of the room.

Donna was asleep, stretched out with her skirt riding up her thighs and drawing his gaze for a moment, white light from the monitors reflecting off her skin. He stepped back from her, afraid his hovering over her would wake her.

Carefully, he sat down on the edge of the sofa by her feet, far enough away the dip of the sofa was minor.

It was so easy to forget how young she was. Too young to have been through what she'd already survived. He had no right to put her through more of it, no matter if she wanted to help or not. He'd already proven he couldn't keep the people who mattered to him save. He'd lose them in the end and if he didn't, he had to drive them away for their own sakes.

She deserved so much better than what he had to offer. But what if it really was what she wanted? If it was not just some inferior compromise she was willing to make? He didn't have the right to decide over her life, did he?

He couldn't claim he understood her, or her motivation, how her experience would have shaped or skewed it. It wasn't his place to judge her for the mistakes she'd made and the scars the consequences of those mistakes had left her with. _He _least of all, except he'd never had to pay anything himself, he'd always been the lucky one. He was still alive, still in one piece, still _sane_.

Pushing her away hadn't worked, she had simply refused to accept it. He could have cut her off completely, but somehow, he never had. Perhaps he was just being selfish, after all, just base animal reasoning, an instinct to take everything he could in case the moment never came again.

He reached out with one hand and stroked down her leg with the back of his hand, barely a touch, but enough to feel the warmth of her skin. Her breathing stayed even, too fast asleep to wake. He stroked her again, until he got a slight twitch and she began to stir. Leaning over her, he place a kiss on the side of her knee as she tensed her muscles and stretched, rolling to her back and pushing herself up to her elbows.

He held up the phone in his hand.

"I thought maybe you'd want to do the honours?"

"It's done?" she asked. Sleep had left a layer of roughness over her voice, but the drowsiness passed immediately. She sat up completely and snatched the phone from his hand.

"Mostly. It'll turn off the tracking devise, but not permanently. It'll hold for a few weeks, by then, I should've something better."

She flicked her thumb over the screen and the phone lit up.

"Do I have to do anything else?"

"No, you're within range."

She sucked in a harsh breath and held it, stared at him from wide eyes. He could feel her tension, transmitted through the leather of the couch, like she was going to snap if she held on to it any longer. He almost took the phone back, pressed the button himself, just so it would be over and she was released.

She clenched her teeth, looked back at the button and put her thumb over it. Aiden could see the upload screen briefly flare up, the progress bar filled, then closed itself again. Part of the trick had been to get his malicious code into the tracker before the self-repair could kick in, but the wifi bug was fast enough.

He saw the screen flicker back to its normal interface.

Donna let out the breath she'd been holding, let her eyes fall closed.

He leaned into couch, surprised himself at how relieved he felt. There'd been a chance the upload failed, for any number of reasons, but the phone hadn't reported any errors, so it should be fine. He could check if the tracker really wasn't transmitting, but things were looking good so far.

"Thank you," she said.

It was too dark to see her clearly, the cruel white light from the monitors outlined her against the dark leather. She pushed her shoulders back, relaxing, but she kept her gaze fixed on him.

There was laughter in her voice when she said, "Are you going to invite me to stay the night?" she asked and despite the levity, there was something darker underneath that pinned him in place instead of reaching for her like he wanted to.

With the life he lead, nothing between them would ever be easy, or obvious, or straightforward. At every turn, he'd have to make sure no one tailed her, he'd have to make sure no one was after _him, _for fear of losing her in the crossfire. It wasn't a question of _was he going to _— because he was — but the real question was _could he afford to _or did he have to be elsewhere later tonight, in some kind of danger. Only he could dictate how and when they could be together, because if he didn't, it would leave too many angles uncovered.

He realised he'd been silent too long, but Donna didn't seem put out, just watching him. But when he kept not saying anything, looking back at her despite the muffling veil of darkness, she moved and nudged him with her foot. She moved forward a bit more, let the phone fall to the floor.

"Absolutely," he answered belatedly.

He settled his hand against the back of her leg, tracing the supple muscles under her soft skin and sneaking upward. Donna made a purring sound, low in her throat and let her legs fall open, leaning a knee into the back of the sofa.

"I have…," Aiden started. He pulled himself up, one leg folded under him so he could lean over her, spoke between small kisses up the exposed inside of her leg. "…one… more… question… for you."

He nosed past the edge of her skirt, rubbed his cheek carefully against her thigh. "Do you want me to shave first?"

Donna chuckled, slipped herself a little lower and put a hand to the side of his face.

"Are you kidding me?" she asked. Lightly, she caressed his face. "It's just…"

The phone rang. Aiden let his head drop into her lap, giving a long-suffering sigh. It was momentarily difficult to remember why he should bother at all. He liked it much better where he was right now, it was warm and she smelled nice.

Donna shifted under him, fished the phone from the floor.

"T-Bone," she said.

Aiden grunted held out his hand without otherwise moving. Blindly, he switched the speaker on, kept holding the phone in the air between them.

"Yeah," he said, though it probably came out a bit muffled. "Donna's here. Say hi."

"Hi," Donna said, trying hard not to laugh.

_"Hi," _T-Bone echoed through the phone, hard to say if there was irritation in his tone or not. _"Look, I think I got a solution for your little problem there. Won't be all fun, I'm afraid. You've got to take out the self-repair."_

"But I thought that wasn't possible," Aiden grumbled.

_"Nah, no such thing as impossible."_

Aiden listened to T-Bone's outline of how he thought they could circumvent the self-repair. It sounded vaguely viable, but probably required several rounds of trial and error before they got it to work. Tampering with the self-repair was hampered by its tendency to overheat the tracker, not something that should be allowed to happen inside the body, even if the particles themselves were small.

"T-Bone?" Donna said when he'd finished. "Thanks for the help. It means a lot."

"Always a pleasure," T-Bone seemed to be grinning. "Just when I think Blume's finally done every fucked up sinister shit, they pull something like this. And you can call me Ray."

"Ray it is," she said, smirking.

Aiden caught himself sighing again, resisted the urge to bury himself a bit deeper, stayed where he was instead. "Just send over what you've got," he said. "I'll see what I can add."

_"Done," _T-Bone announced and a tiny chime from the computer rig confirmed it.

"I'll call you back," Aiden said, cut the connection before T-Bone got something else in edgewise.

He didn't resist when Donna picked the phone out of his hand again. He was about to scoot back, but he didn't get very far. Donna threw one leg over his shoulder, it wasn't very good lock, but it made any drive he had of getting away to vanish into thin air.

He glanced up, still couldn't see much of her face. "Didn't you want me to fix the tracker?"

"It's _off_, isn't it?" she asked, something heavy and playful sneaking into her tone. "It's not doing anything right now. It feels good like this, good enough. You said it'll be weeks."

"Yeah."

"There's time. You can finish what you started _here _first."

* * *

_End of _Nightcall: Confirmation Bias_

* * *

**Revised on 05/June/2015**


	25. Nightcall: Running with Scissors

**Warning: **Sex.

**Author's Note: **Aiden's mask is now a scarf, though it looks more like a neck gaiter in the game. Maybe it was laundry day. (And I've always really thought of it as a scarf…)

The gay rumour was supposed to feature in State of Play, but it didn't make much sense there.

I feel compelled to classify this as 'crack', if only because it's probably by far the silliest of all Brilliancy stories. I almost didn't include it in the lineup.

**Auxiliary Information: **Despite it existing in the background of many of Brilliancy's stories, I've somehow managed to never mention Taskforce Bloodhound, the CPD guys hunting the vigilante. Talk about clever world-building…

* * *

**_Nightcall: Running with Scissors**

* * *

"I was just browsing some of the 'vigilante' sites. You wouldn't believe the stuff these people write about…"

_"Actually, I do."_

"You're kidding me! You _are_ reading this? There are forums dedicated to hunting you down, detailing your crimes. They've got this running calculation how much tax dollars have been wasted on you. There are angry rants about how dangerous you are and how the government has failed… or that they're secretly behind it to push ctOS."

_"I know."_

"But do you know you've got _fans, _too? There's a group dedicated to snapping a picture of you. They trade tips on how to circumvent your scramblers."

_"Are they working?" _

"Well, the _scramblers_ are doing their job just fine, enough blurry shots to prove it. But it should worry you that these people are actually pretty good at finding you. Better than the cops and your enemies, at least that's what it looks like to me."

_"That's because I keep an eye on the online chatter." _

_"_They are like storm chasers. That makes you a hurricane, you know. A force of nature."

_"I'd like it better if they stayed out of danger, I can't protect everyone. And it's pretty much a waste of time to try to save someone who doesn't want to be saved."_

"It doesn't look like they see it that way."

_"Not my place to educate them."_

"Yes, but they're still tragedies in the making. There's also a group of, well, you can never be too sure on the internet, let's call them _people _offering you shelter and 'comfort'. I air-quoted that last one, by the way, I'm sure we both know what they mean. At least they won't run into the middle of a firefight to snap a useless picture. Did you, uh, read their stories, too?"

_"I'm not sure. I don't look at everything, just whatever gets flagged by the system. There are stories?"_

"Come to think of it, it's all your own fault. You can't prance around the city, looking like you do, righting wrongs like some modern day shining knight without attracting a peculiar kind of attention. What stories? Erotic stories, Aiden, _porn_. Most are rather silly, but some of them are actually pretty good."

_"What do you mean, looking like I do? What do I look like?"_

"Well, tall, badass and the mask just makes you more mysterious. Danger is sexy. What did you think would happen?"

_"I didn't think… That's never been my point and you know it. You should stop reading this trash."_

"I was bored and it's amusing."

_"So you're reading amateur erotica about some imaginary version of me? If there's something you need, you just have to let me know." _

"Make an educated guess about what I'm doing right now."

_"The real thing is more inviting after all?" _

"Depends on how far you're willing to go, now that you ask. Why do we never role-play? It seems like a lot of fun."

_"Because if you want something different, I'll have to pretend to be an accountant."_

"Well, here's one. The damsel-in-distress being saved by the vigilante from a pack of gang-bangers..."

_"That's the best you can do?" _

"…then they screw in an alleyway."

_"Romance is dead." _

"I know just the alleyway."

_"I'll lend you the mask." _

* * *

Throughout the day, the city has baked in the heat, but with nightfall, the rain has taken them unawares, coming out of nowhere. Water is running down, drenching them both within moments. It burns in her eyes, too much to blink away and she's dropped Aiden cap somewhere she can't remember. It tastes acrid in her mouth, all the dirt and dust of the city washed from the air.

It doesn't matter, because Aiden tastes better, despite how it's the end of a long day he really tastes of old coffee and the sandwich he's had for lunch and there are traces of blood from the lip he's split in a fight she doesn't know about. But — because — he's living warmth against and inside her, pliant lips and demanding tongue and it's still a new-old feeling she can't quite grasp.

Aiden isn't one for playing games, not truly, only if he's playing against his enemies. His scarf lies wrapped tightly around her throat, heavy with water, but he's using it only to rein her in, keep her pinned between himself and the wall, roughly, just before it becomes too much. Aiden is like that, always a little too hard, too intense, never enough patience and taking just a little more than he's willing to give. But _always _exactly what she needs, too.

Freedom, that's what this was about, all the way. Freedom to forget how to think and how to breathe, letting her body do what it wants the most. _Easy_ to wrap her legs around his waist and fist her fingers into the soaked, clinging material of his shirt. But the move means he has to to pull his other hand free from between her legs and grip her thigh instead and crushes her back into the rough wall to hold them both up.

She still can't breathe and she's losing control of the kiss, too distracted by the restraint around her throat, the feedback loop of abrasive wet layers of jeans separating them and the dull shiver of pleasure, leaving a frustrating itch she can't scratch by merely rutting against him.

Aiden tilts his head back, out of reach of her tongue, and he slides his lips along her jaw to her ear, low-voiced, breathy amusement drifting to her, "Is it still dry-humping if it's so _wet?" _

Somewhere, at the back of her head there's a clever comeback, something like _and then there's the rain, _she can't be bothered to put it into words, not when he slips his hand back between her legs, undo the buttons of her jeans and works the wet zipper down until he can get his clever fingers back inside, through the tight fit of her jeans and the unrelenting hold of her legs around him.

She's purring, low in her throat, riding forward and up on his fingers, locking his hand into place, giving him barely any room to move, barely more than the curl of his fingers and the hungry twitching of her inner muscles along with it. And it's _good, _just not good enough, not deep enough, not enough space for the both of them to move.

She's deadlocked, caught between an unwillingness to unwrap her legs from him and the knowledge that they are getting nowhere. She's just riding his fingers — badly — and she doesn't really know what he's getting out of it at this point, other than watching the emotions roll across her face, but perhaps that's why she hears him chuckle darkly. He flexes his fingers inside her, slows the rough strokes he's managed through the constriction and leans his head closer to her, teases a kiss he doesn't deliver.

"Turn around," he says in her ear and it's like he's flipped a switch and all her nerves light up. She's surprised there aren't any sparks in the rain.

It gives her time to realise just where she is. And she's picked this place with some care, there are turns and twists until this corner of the back alley connects to some greater avenue, but it's still close enough to hear the traffic, the low-level humming of the cars, close enough to feel the weight of all those people.

It's the point, what she wanted, this thrill like the chase of their first night, when she was still trying to find herself in all of this. It's changed now, at least in all the ways that matter, but the thought of it all still makes her heart hitch in her chest. She takes her legs down, but pulls him close into a sloppy kiss to join the water still beating down on them.

It's Aiden who flicks her around, pins her hands to the rough wall and she keeps them there when his touch leaves her. The paint is crumbling from the wall, tiny shards of it dig through the thin material of her shirt, bite into the flaring nerves of her breasts at every involuntary shudder of her body.

Aiden's hands return to her, trail down her flanks and force the soaked, heavy material of her jeans down. It clings and resists, the waistband won't go down further than her knees, the jeans still covering her thighs. She arches her back, spreads her legs, but doesn't get far.

The rain beats down on her back, draws rivulets of sensation around her hips and down her thighs. She thinks it makes her skin shine in the gunmetal-grey heat of the city. She doesn't know where Aiden's touch has gone and it's just the water mapping her body, but the moment stretches and she shifts her head against the walls to catch a look at him.

Before she can, however, he's back on her. He wraps his hand around the scarf on her neck — she feels the tug and pull of it and leans into it. The water pools along her spine, slides down her body and is disturbed by Aiden's hand, climbing up her flank.

She feels him behind her, between her slightly parted legs, solid hot flesh rubbing up against her, forcing her to her toes and her chest presses harder into the wall. The rough material of his jeans scratches the back of her thighs as he covers her.

Aiden leans over her, teasingly rolls his hips against her and dips his head down, lapped the water up her spine, something between kisses and bites, sinking his teeth into the skin at her neck, between the scarf and her shirt.

It's a hungry laugh in her ear.

"Say 'yes'," he demands with another pull on the scarf that brings her head back even further.

But it comes out as a hiss, catches in her constrained throat. Everything's _almost _too much, too much sensation between the heat of the air and the sting of the rain, the abrasion of the wall and the manipulation of Aiden's hand down her side, then on her hip, yanking her harder against him.

She tries again, _"Yessss!… _Aid—_" _Another yank on the scarf and her voice breaks into a snarl, tired of teasing.

Her body is too tight, she can't spread her legs further than the jeans around her knees will allow. She _strains_ around him. No more teasing, no more games, it's as if the rain has finally stripped it all away, leaving nothing behind but some raw and primal instinct.

She thinks of the city around them, _feels_ it on her skin, the intrusive attention of some camera she hasn't spotted and despite everything, for a moment she wonders what the systems sees of them, whether there'll be an alert of some kind.

Aiden takes his teeth from her heated skin and she imagines him letting his head drop back so the rain can beat into his face. He takes it too slow for her feverish nerves, makes her ache and claw her fingers into the crumbling plaster under her hands.

His grip on her hips was just loose enough, the bondage of her jeans is just wide enough and she cants her hips into and away from his thrusts. The pleasure turns sharp from one moment to the next, burns through her entire body. Her breath comes in gasps and moans, constricted and going hoarse.

She's lightheaded, there's nothing but a multitude of sensation. The water-soaked scarf and the coarse wall and Aiden's steely grip. Her entire body shudders, takes her over and it _doesn't stop_. Aiden rides her through it, cascading moans spilling from them both.

Aiden drops his hold on the scarf — the oxygen is a new rush and her held back moans tip into a low cry — and Aiden folds his fingers around her shoulder to give him more leverage. She's still twitching, inside out, great spasms running through her, until it's _too much_, her thighs shake against Aiden's last deep, sensual thrusts as if he's trying to possess her.

He gives little stuttering thrusts, aftershocks abrading her sensitive nerves and she whimpers. She rubs her cheek across the rough wall as she turns her head as far as she can, enough to see him through her rain-blurred vision in the moment before he finds her mouth from the side and it's a messy kiss, still tethering on the edge of control. She's _drenched, _utterly, water and sweat and her own release running down her legs. He rolls his hips one last time, grinds her into the wall, before he draws back and she staggers, only doesn't fall because there's nowhere to go.

He releases her mouth and she leans her head back into the wall, breathing sharply, watching him from the corner of slack-lidded eyes.

"So," he asks and his smile is devastating, eyes ridiculous bright past the strands of his wet hair. "What happens next in your fantasy?"

* * *

**To: **Donna Dean

**From:** AP

**Message:** see attachment

**Attachment:** gl43intygu

* * *

"What the hell?"

_"We were filmed." _

"I can see that! I thought you scrambled this stuff!"

_"No… I scramble ctOS and I mess up Profiler's facial recognition. It's hard work keeping up with every video and picture app out there, too much to bother most of the time. The most popular cloud services will scramble the pictures for me, because my phone embeds a signal in the video, but it only works if the app's connected to Profiler. Most of them are, this one wasn't."_

"You knew?"

_"You picked the place. I just played along."_

"So now it's my fault?"

_"I'm not complaining."_

"No, I don't recall you complaining. I guess the internet is forever?"

_"Mostly, yes. Sure, I could take it down, maybe it'll last all of five minutes before it reappears somewhere else. Ten minutes, if I crash every popular video platform at the same time."_

"You… don't sound upset."

_"Really? I could try harder if you like." _

"Are your fans suitably impressed and jealous?"

_"Actually, it's more a long string of complaints about the video and sound quality and there's a trashcan in front of the interesting parts." _

"I saw that."

_"There's also some minor controversy about whether I'm too rough and you're actually willing." _

"It's because they can't hear me yell 'yes'… wait, is that why…? Did you _know _there was someone there?"

_"You know, I once tried something like that, get an alert every-time someone points a phone at me."_

"What happened?"

_"What do you think? Lots of false alarms. It's useless."_

"But did you know?"

_"Well, I thought it was the point?"_

"You didn't!"

_"Crime of omission. I didn't know, but I could've checked. No harm done. Well, except that rumour that says I'm gay. Fewer people are gonna believe it now."_

"You what?"

_"You have no idea how much that messes up the profiles, there's almost no comparable data. And it keeps you off the radar, too."_

"Yes, maybe it did, until my face was on video with you."

_"Don't think I'm not doing anything about it, but just deleting it won't cut it."_

"What _are _you doing?"

_"Well, some very reliable sources will soon debunk it. It'll make the news and they'll interview the slightly embarrassed guy who's really in the video and not at all the vigilante. Apparently, he was out role-playing with his girl. They both will yield false positives when put through Profiler."_

"That… could actually work."

_"It won't fool everyone, but it'll kick up enough dust. You'd better practice your confused and scandalised face, Bloodhound _will_ come and talk to you." _

"I've been waiting for that one anyway."

_"Remember to keep things simple, it's easy for elaborate lies to trip you up." _

"Don't worry, I got it. Did you make up all that on the fly?"

_"I have a handful of backup plans. They _are _meant to keep me from facing a life sentence, not a charge for public indecency, but… I think it's worth it."_

"Is that so?"

_"That is so. Look, there is one more thing. I'm sending an app to you. Let it run as soon as you can. It's going to purge me from your phone, Bloodhound won't be able to reconstruct anything useful." _

"Will do."

_"Now… Is there some other itch you need scratching?"_

"Do you know just how tempting you are? You should come with a warning."

_"I believe I do. It's not my fault you didn't pay attention." _

"Oh, I was paying attention. I just didn't I care."

* * *

_End of _Nightcall: Running with Scissors_

* * *

**Revised on 05/June/2015**


	26. Nightcall: Riptide

**Warning: **Spoilers for Dark Clouds!

**Author's Note:** The reason I gave you 'Running with Scissors' and its comparative light-heartedness is, well, the honeymoon is _over_.

**Story Notes: **I'm altering a few scenes from Dark Clouds to make space for Donna, but I think it's a fairly minor change and just something I wanted to do. This kicks off right after Aiden's patched up by Morrsky.

I _think_ Dark Clouds supposed to take place immediately after Bad Blood and is meant to segue into Watch Dogs 2. For Brilliancy, I've dated it to autumn/winter 2015 (several months after Running with Scissors, which takes place in summer.)

* * *

[summary: there's a side of aiden pearce donna doesn't really know.]

**_Nightcall: R****iptide**

* * *

Donna had parked the car across the street, like Aiden's text had told her to. She waited with badly concealed impatience, fingers clenching and unclenching on the wheel. Down the street, a lamp kept flickering, setting her nerves on edge. Aiden had been monosyllabic in his text, just asked her to come. He had offered no explanation. He hadn't asked her to, either, but she'd elected to take her gun with her anyway.

She was a good shot, it was Iraq who had shown her how to use a gun and the memory of him was strangely mellow now. She could barely summon much anger towards him anymore. He'd fucked up her life, but unlike him, she was still there, still alive. She had won.

The gun helped only a little.

She scanned the street, picked out the ctOS cameras as they surveilled the empty street, but she still startled when Aiden stepped out of the darkness of an alleyway. He stopped briefly, then crossed the street, stepped around the car and got in the passenger seat.

The lamp came on, cast it's murky light into the car, crawled across Aiden's face and tense body.

There was blood. Aiden had got most of it out of his hair, but he must have bled like a pig all over the collar of his coat and into the sweater beneath. More blood had seeped through the bandage on his head, but it seemed to have stopped. He looked pale and tired, his face a slowly cracking stone mask, gaze cast down on his phone, watching some video feed Donna couldn't make sense of from this angle.

He barely acknowledged her for a full minute, when he looked up, his expression didn't change. This was the look he had reserved for his enemies, something frosty and penetrating. You could break yourself on that gaze, pleading for mercy.

Donna looked back at him, steadily, waited for the moment to pass.

He blinked, let those eyes fall closed and leaned his shoulders into the seat.

"Where do we need to go?" she asked.

Aiden exhaled slowly. He brought his phone up, tapped something and the GPS in the car changed its destination. Something a good twenty minutes away, by the device's estimate.

She started the car, drove it along the path the GPS dictated her, trying hard not to glance at him every opportunity she got, at every traffic light or stop sign. She wanted to know what had happened, but it didn't seem like the moment to ask. He'd lowered the phone, sunk even lower in his seat. He was rubbing the temple on the uninjured side of his head, then moved down to massage his neck.

The GPS led into a rundown neighbourhood. It had once been nice, Donna could tell even in the darkness, working class families fulfilling their dream of their own house, but since then, several bouts of financial crises had swept through the place and the gangs had moved in its wake. They passed some groups of them, roaming their neighbourhood like packs of wolves.

She turned into a overgrown driveway, she missed the move Aiden made on his phone, but the garage door opened on its own under the glare of the headlights, chattering metal uncomfortably loud in the night.

She drove in, stopped the car and killed the engine.

"Can you close the garden gate?" Aiden asked. He opened his door and pulled himself out, his movements were slow and heavy, but it was only a momentary lapse. Donna saw him tense again, square his shoulders before he slammed the car's door closed with slightly more force than necessary. "Use only the door from garage," he said. "Others are rigged."

He didn't wait for her answer, but walked to the door, already peeling off the blood-crusted coat as he went.

She was fairly sure the garage door was also rigged, but he probably had diffused it with his phone, some quick snap of a finger she'd missed.

She went outside, crossed the driveway and closed the gate. She lingered, stared up and down the street, spotted a group of gang-bangers, but they weren't paying her or the house at her back any attention.

Aiden had safe-houses everywhere in the city, small bolt-holes and entire apartments, like the posh place he kept in Mad Mile. She had been to barely a handful of them and this house was new to her.

The inside of the house was thinly furnished, a rickety kitchen table with two mismatched chairs, a low hanging lamp shedding sickly yellow light. A kitchenette was behind it, from the 1980s and apparently never properly cleaned since then. There was a threadbare couch against the other wall, hidden in shadows.

A desk stood beside the couch, packed with a computer rig, though much smaller than Aiden's usual setup, just one monitor and a laptop backed by several stacked towers.

Aiden's coat lay on the floor by the door, she picked it up as she walked past, felt the stiffness where the blood had caked to it. A little further in, he'd dropped his sweater. She picked that up, too as she walked to the kitchenette and hung both over the back of a chair. The leather of Aiden's gun holster curled on the table, but it had been dropped with the same carelessness as the clothes.

The hissing of water from the sink was the only sound, Aiden stood bent over the counter, wiped at the blood on his back and neck with what seemed to be the T-shirt he'd worn. He didn't look up when she entered, didn't seem to acknowledge her at all. A thin sheen of sweat caught the light, emphasised the hard set of his muscles down his back as he moved.

Donna looked away from him, studied the coat and vaguely wondered how difficult it was to get blood out of the leather. Not too hard, she supposed, it couldn't be the first time.

"Can you stay?" Aiden asked unexpectedly. He turned the water off, dropped the soiled shirt into the sink and watched her, seemed to really see her for the first time that night and remembered to soften his icy expression.

"Of course I can stay," she said, somewhat irritably.

He pushed himself away from the counter, his movements were slower, heavier than she'd ever seen him, it took real effort just to stand there, she thought, he had to force himself to do it.

He would have walked past her, but Donna snatched his hand before he could and he stopped, let himself be pulled into an embrace, though he held himself rigid in her arms. In nothing but an afterthought, he placed a quick kiss to her forehead, then stepped out of her hold.

"Thanks," he said.

She watched as he crossed the room, turned on the computer and sat down in front of it, pulling his phone from his back-pocket. He flexed his shoulders, but he didn't seem to remember how to relax. He wiped at the edge of the phone, then tapped something on it. The recording of a surveillance video appeared on the larger screen and he put the phone away.

Donna narrowed her eyes.

"What happened?" she asked quietly.

At first, she thought he wasn't going to answer at all, but then he said, "I was stupid. Took a stupid risk and paid for it. Should've known better."

Donna hesitated, as if she'd been nailed to the floorboards in that one spot. Aiden's tension had filled every corner of the room and it was seeping into her own bones. "You were shot," she observed.

Aiden sucked in a deep breath, leaned back in his chair and pointed at the screen with his chin. "Watch," he said.

So she did. She walked forward until she stood behind him. She put a hand to his back, very carefully, but when he didn't flinch or brush her off, she pressed her fingers into the knotted muscles as his neck. Her attention, however, was on the video. It showed some industrial waterfront street, badly lit in the oncoming gloom of the evening. It was easy to identify Aiden inside the bubble of pixellation surrounding him on the recording. He walked along the street with a leisurely stride and although his posture was hidden from sight, she knew he was ready to spring at the first sign of trouble. Not that it was going to do him much good.

Donna immediately spotted the van as it turned the corner behind him, but Aiden seemed to have missed it, or noticed it too late, or took too long to identify it as a threat at all. He was distracted by someone else, a man just barely visible on the edge of the screen, ten paces away from Aiden and looking back at him.

The silence of the video was eerie, made the scene as it played out surreal and far more frightening, despite the assurance that he was _not _dead, that he was right _there. _But the video told a different story, told of a man shot down in the street, lying there without moving and a rapidly growing puddle of blood spread out where his head had hit the concrete.

"Who's the man?" Donna asked. He hurried to Aiden's side, crouched down then pulled out his phone.

Aiden paused the video.

"Someone I haven't seen in a long time," he said. "He's been looking for me, but I don't know…"

"He set you up?"

"I don't know," Aiden said. "Doesn't make sense. He called out, he warned me. Things might not have gone down so harmlessly without him."

Donna pulled her gaze away from the screen and looked down at Aiden, still looking ready to snap, dark rings had began to form under his eyes and his skin an unhealthy pallor. He needed to lie down, rest and gather his thoughts instead of staring at that screen. But there was an angry edge in his expression, she didn't have a name for. It wasn't just that he was unwilling to relax and rest, she didn't think he even could.

"But _someone_ set me up," he said. "Maybe not Mick Wolfe, but someone who knew I was meeting with him. That's not a lot of people, unless someone was listening in. Either way, they'll have left traces, just need to find them."

Donna still looked down at him with a strained calm of her own, unsure what she should say, what he expected her to say or whether, in that moment, she was just convenient to let him vocalise his own thoughts.

He minimised the video, pulled up some data feed. "Can't let that go," he said and she wasn't sure if it was meant as some kind of apology for the sake of her sensibilities. "Sets a dangerous precedent."

She took a step back from him.

"You've got a concussion, that's why you asked me to stay," she said. "When you pass out, who do I call?"

"I won't pass out," he said, indignant growl in his voice, but quieter, he added. "Says 'Doc' on my phone. He'll bitch at you and demand advance payment. There's some cash in the kitchen cabinet, taped to the underside on the left. If you need more, check the power sockets in the bedroom. They're wired up, be careful."

Donna spent the better part of the night staving off her own tiredness and watching Aiden like a hawk, though she couldn't tell if he was struggling or not. He was focussed on his work, an unyielding intensity as he dug through the vast pool of knowledge ctOS amassed, unravelling whatever web was supposed to be spun around him.

It got cold as the night dragged on and she must have dozed off after all. It was a mistake to pick the couch over a chair, she thought, too comfortable despite the springs digging into her flesh. She woke because Aiden touched her shoulder and then stuffed a folded sweater into her hands before she had a chance to even sit up straight.

He himself wore some scratchy looking cardigan. Wordlessly, he zipped it only halfway up his chest, then sat back down in front of the computer. He wasn't actually doing anything, just watching he data change on his screen.

"Do you have anything to eat?"

"Tap water."

"Not even beer?" she asked in an effort to lighten the mood, but it felt like a stillbirth before she'd even finished the question.

He scowled, "Well, there's a packet of aspirin I'm _also_ not allowed to touch, so don't remind me."

He glanced over his shoulder at her. "Order something if you want. I'm not hungry."

"Maybe you should sleep," she said. She pulled the sweater on, it was one of his and too big, smelling faintly of dust, but it gave her a chance to huddle in it. She pulled her knees up against her chest.

She expected denial, some puffed up posturing which might be faked all the way through, but could just as easily be the truth of how he felt and thought.

Aiden said, "Yeah."

He gave his chair a slight shove, let his head drop down and to the side, so he could give her a sidelong glance. "You should, too. Take the bed, I'll stay here."

"Is there a reason we can't _both_ take the bed?"

For the first time, he cracked a faint smile. It made him look even more tired. "You overestimate my self-control."

"You overestimate your health," she responded, but regretted it immediately when it wiped the smile from his face as if it had never been. She could only guess why. Perhaps the reminder of his own failure, though she didn't think his ego bruised so easily. No, far more likely, it was the reminder that he was on the hunt. Someone out there was responsible, someone _else_ he could make hurt far worse than he was.

"Probably," he agreed and turned away from her again, concentrated on the screen and said nothing more.

In the unflattering glare of the screen, his face was set in stern concentration, as if the exchange between them hadn't happened and she couldn't think of a way to reverse it.

There was a side of him he was careful not to show her. Yet, tonight, he'd been too cornered — and perhaps too drained — to care. If she had to, she could understand it as a gesture of trust. He'd turned to _her_ in a moment of weakness. But if she didn't _have to, _it was just another calculation he'd made, perhaps literally, on the run. Who, of all his acquaintances, was least likely to capitalise on his vulnerability?

She stayed on the couch, but the cold was persistent. If the house had any heating, it certainly wasn't turned on. The computer took precedence over any human comfort and Aiden didn't even seem to notice.

Eventually, she got up and walked to his side, slid a hand along his shoulders. He tensed under her fingers, but turned his head toward her and his expression seemed to have mellowed in the last hour.

"I got a few good leads," he said. "Still don't know how it all fits together."

She smiled a little. "Do you think they'll vanish if you don't stare at them constantly?"

"That's not…" he started, but didn't finish the entirely predictable line.

"That's exactly what you do," she pointed out. "And you're getting nowhere."

"It's there," he insisted. "Someone put out a hit on me. It's been almost a year since some fixer tried to cash in on the bounty. It can't be that. I don't think it's just a freelancer. This is somebody with connections and money. I'm not letting him get away with this, playing me, playing Wolfe— and I still don't know where Wolfe fits. _" _

"And all of that will still be there in a couple of hours," Donna pointed out. "Come on, we both know this place is safe. It's a bit of an eyesore, I'm afraid, but that's not _danger_."

She felt him strain under her fingers, but he said nothing, eyes still fixed on the collected data on the screen, opened windows piled on top of each other, a mess of information and somewhere within it, the name of whoever had almost got him killed today. She spotted the scans of bad photocopies, military personnel files, assessment reports of Blume staff, private email correspondences. Was there anything he couldn't access if he wanted to?

"Well," she finally said. She leaned down over him and placed a kiss on the corner of his mouth, coaxing until he at least relaxed his lips and started to respond. He drew back from her immediately as if he suspected some kind of trick.

"I'm going to bed," she said as neutrally as she could. "If you need me, you know where to find me."

The house had just one story and though the unrelenting light of the monitors didn't find its way there, it took some time until her sleepiness returned. Curled up under the sheets, she listened to the faint, occasional yapping of a keyboard, the creak of Aiden's chair. She supposed she'd hear the thud if he fell and she didn't think she could sleep deep enough to miss it.

She drifted in and out of sleep until the first light of dawn pushed through the shoddy blinds and began outlining the room around her. She heard Aiden get up from the chair, heard him make a call and then she heard his slow steps as he came to the bedroom.

She rolled to her back, watched his darker shape against the doorway.

"Changed your mind?" she asked quietly.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, rubbed his forehead and tucked slightly on the bandage.

"Can't see straight," he said after a moment. He pulled off the cardigan, tossed it aside, then bent down to get rid of his boots. A low groan escaped him as he sat back up. He glanced over his shoulder at her and slowly leaned down until his head came to rest on her belly.

"Couple of hours," he said, making a concession to her and his own body. "Something's going down, can't let it out of my sight too long."

She said nothing, afraid she would accidentally prompt him to pick himself back up despite everything. He did anyway, but only so he could take off the rest of his clothes and crawl under the blanket.

She listened to his breathing, the sigh on the edge of pain he tried to suppress. He forced himself to relax, one cramped muscle at a time and his breathing began to even out. After a little while, she rolled over to him, slung a leg and an arm over him, pinning him in place, just in case.

The alarm on his phone went off barely three hours later. There was nothing she could do to hold him back after that.

* * *

_End of _Nightcall: Riptide_

* * *

**In Other News: **I read up on concussions and Aiden's lifestyle consists almost exclusively of things he isn't supposed to do with a concussion (you know, like driving, fighting and using a computer… and I gave him this penchant for — expensive — beer, just to round things up.)

**For those of you who haven't read Dark Clouds: **Trying to shoot Aiden Pearce's head off and _missing _isn't a very bright idea. He got a little creative with the payback.

* * *

**Revised on 05/June/2015**


	27. Nightcall: Inevitable - Part 1

[takes place November 2015]

**_Nightcall: Inevitable – Part 1**

* * *

When she was young, Donna had still believed nightmares belonged to those rare, bad nights when she had a fever and couldn't sleep and her mind was working funny. When you woke, they vanished and they didn't return for months or years. They had no more substance than any other flights of fancy. They didn't _last _and they had no power.

But then, she had spent nearly a year locked in a nightmare and she had known from the start, morning would not bring relieve from this nightmare at all, just a new iteration of it. She'd been free of it, but the memory still sometimes reared its ugly head, though she knew how to handle it when it did.

However, there was the new nightmare haunting her days and nights, it filled all the silent moments in her head.

She made a purring sound and nuzzled closer to Aiden, her face pressed into the hollow between his shoulder blades as she aligned with him. She'd wrapped an arm around his chest from behind, tangled one leg with his to bask in the feeling of him so close.

He wasn't asleep, she knew, but he was calm and relaxed for once. No vestiges of tension running through his body, no last sinews strained in case he needed to move at a moment's notice.

It had been weeks since he'd been shot and he seemed to have recovered. His hair around the wound was still short, but the too long strands around it usually fell to cover it, even when he wasn't wearing his cap. At a guess, she suspected he had already forgotten all about it. He hadn't told her how the story had ended, but she had got fairly good at recognising his traces on the news.

She still didn't mind the blood on his hands, but she now understood the price of it. That grainy video footage of him shot down in the street, the puddle of blood growing around his head… _that _was the new nightmare and it was too real to just hope for morning.

The apartment was save, of course. He wouldn't let her stay if it wasn't, he wouldn't relax in her arms like he was. Still, it was easy to imagine some kind of attack. A gas grenade shot through the windows and a SWAT team right behind it. Or perhaps a group of elite mercenaries, flown in from some less peaceful corner of the world, because no one in Chicago would dare it.

How _save _could he make this place, in the end?

"Aiden," she said, quietly, before she even realised she had spoken at all.

"Hm?"

She breathed deeply, a little wistfully, because perhaps she could have outlasted the moment, if he had been asleep and hadn't heard her. Now, however, it was already done and she didn't know how to stop.

"I'm going to leave."

It was too quiet, she knew. There was no accompanying thunderclap, but Aiden was perceptive and awake enough to realise it. He might be an accomplished liar when he needed to be, but his body did a worse job of playing its part. The relaxation fell from him, one moment to the next.

"Leave?" he asked. Some sleep still clung to his voice, rendered it oddly gentle. He'd turned his head, but otherwise hadn't moved.

If she could, she'd slip even closer, but there was already no space between them anymore. She closed her eyes tighter, though, and gripped him harder.

"I can't survive like this," she said and because she had already started, she couldn't stop herself. "Do you even still remember that concussion?"

"Still get headaches," he muttered. He let his head drop back to the pillow, facing away from her.

"I told you before, I don't judge you for anything you've done, or for what you'll do in the future, but I think I finally realised what it really means. You know? At the end of the day?"

"I really don't," he said slowly.

But he did, she was sure of it. She exhaled slowly, knew he'd feel it along his spine and a minuscule shift of his shoulders betrayed it. She opened her eyes, though it was too dark to see anything other than dark grey lines on black shadows. Earlier, the moon had shone above the lake, cast silver light across the room, but it was gone now and the night was growing old.

"I can't look at you and not wonder how you're going to die," she said, as bluntly as anything she had ever said. There was nothing else, the thoughts had exhausted her days ago in her refusal to put them into words.

"And it's…" she stopped momentarily unwilling to continue. She took a deep breath, but it just made things worse. He smelled clean, none of that gunpowder residue and static she otherwise associated with him.

"It's breaking me," she finished.

"I can't promise you another outcome."

Despite herself, she had to laugh, if only a little. "You could try," she said. "Lie to me. Convince me. Tell me you can take care of yourself and no one's ever going to get the better of you. You're good at this, I've seen it. If you lied, I could lie to myself."

"That's not what you want," he said.

She could sense he was about to move, away and up and out of her hands. She held on for a moment longer and he lingered of his own, but then her grip broke. Aiden sat up on the edge of the bed, glanced over his shoulder back at her, even if he wouldn't be able to see much more than her outline.

"You've been thinking about it a lot," he said and it was too low to assume anything about what he thought.

"Since the concussion," she admitted. She didn't like what it implied, but if nothing else, she owed him this much honesty. "You know what's funny?" she asked. "I think you knew we'd get here. You tried to keep me at arm's length for a long time and I wouldn't listen."

"You converted me," he said and this time, he failed to suppress what he was feeling. She'd hurt him, of course she hadn't wanted to, but it was a weak excuse. There was nothing she could do to take it back. And besides, she had started it, she had to finish it, too.

She clenched her teeth, trying to think, but her mind didn't seem to be working, all jumbled inside her. She sat up, too, slipped backward until she could press herself against the padded headboard.

"It's like I can always smell the blood," she said. "All the time. You are always trying to protect the people close to you, you do it to me, your sister, even Ray, but you keep forgetting that we cannot protect you in turn. _I _can't protect you."

"You don't have to protect me," he said, edge of a snarl in his voice.

"Are you sure? Because you don't do so well watching people you care about suffer. And it's exactly the same thing. You condemn me to _watch. _Helplessly._"_

And because she already knew what he was going to say next, she didn't give him the chance. She continued, "And I'm not asking you to stop. Even if that's possible somehow, I don't think you'd do it for anyone."

He was silent for a long time, his back still to her with only the faint outline of his profile to help interpret anything he said. Very quietly, he said, "What are you going to do now?"

"Leave," she said, back to the beginning and a part of her still wished she could make everything as if it had never happened. She could have said all of this _without_ leaving_. _She'd shot down any other outcome before it had even started. Another mistake, to complement all the others.

She wasn't sure — not now — whether she _wanted _him to stop, even if it was an option at all, she didn't know. There was a tragedy at the heart of Aiden Pearce, something forever contradictory. She understood him well enough to finally identify it. He was a family man, he _deserved _it, if nothing else. He rarely spoke of his sister, and he had mentioned his niece only once in all the time she'd known him. It mattered too much, she thought, for him to speak of it. He'd cut himself off from Nicole and his nephew, because he knew what would happen if he didn't. Perhaps he'd drawn the curtain on any thoughts of a family of his own long ago.

Or perhaps he hadn't, not entirely, and she had just done it for him.

"My boss," she answered. "He's offering to get me into a training programme. It'd take me away from here for a while."

"And then?"

Like a prompt, just to keep the conversation going. Donna felt like shivering, the thread was running through her fingers, frazzled. "I don't know. I can go undercover. There's a lot I can do."

"Making a difference."

She shook her head. She didn't know if he could see it. "I… I have to do this. Staying in Chicago… ."

"I get it," he said, almost impatiently. "You don't have to sell it to me." A tiny pause, a breath, something like a laugh. "Been dumped before, you know."

He finally picked himself up and walked to the cupboard without hesitation. She heard the low hiss of a drawer, the faint rustle of fabric.

"Aiden," she said and he just stopped, mid-movement, tilted his head toward her.

"I need to know something," she said. The chaos in her head was starting to settle down, leaving the taste of ashes on her tongue and the oddly belated realisation she wasn't just hurting _him_. "It's complicated," she said and felt the echo of the trite expression. "That's what you said. Complicated. Maybe that's all there is. I can't understand it all, but I think distance will help. But I need to know… if I leave…"

She didn't know why her voice tapered off like that, why this, of all things she'd already said, seemed to be the hardest. "Do you think I could ever come back?"

He turned around, faced her to the first time through the muffling veil of darkness between them, but she could make out his shrug anyway. It seemed a dismissive gesture, careless, and his voice matched it perfectly.

"I'll still be here," he said. "You can always call."

"Just like that?" she asked. She didn't want to move. She needed to leave, that much was true, but right now, the bed by her side still held a residue of heat and if she concentrated, she could still sense the pattern his touch had painted on her skin. Her nerves still tingled a little.

He shrugged again.

"Of course, I'll still be the same man, too," he said.

He stayed for another long minute, gave her a chance to say whatever else she thought she needed to say. She realised she'd have to get up, back up her words with actions. Get up and _leave, _like she'd said she would.

When she didn't say anything else, Aiden turned away from her and left the room, crossing in front of the windows as he did and there was just enough light reflected off all the expanse of the lake to catch a glimpse of his face, but he was past to quickly to read in it. He hadn't looked at her.

Silence flooded the room in his wake, unfeeling coolness crawling across the floor and reclaiming the bed until Donna finally gave up on it. Without turning on the light, she got up. Picked up the clothes she'd dropped without a care in the world only a handful of hours ago. She hesitated briefly, but then decided it'd be prudent to shower at home.

* * *

_End of _Nightcall: Inevitable – Part 1_

* * *

**Author's Note: **This is version five or six and Aiden's still being petulant, but Donna really has a rotten sense of timing.


	28. Nightcall: Inevitable - Part 2

**Alternative summary: **Aiden Pearce, still screwing over people he cares about.

**Background info: **FLETC stands for Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers, they are run by Homeland Securty. I made up everything else.

**Author's Note: **I'm a bit unsure of this part. I feel like it's too short, but everytime I try to write more, it just detracts. What do you think?

* * *

**_Nightcall: Inevitable – Part 2**

* * *

It wasn't an interrogation room, for however little it was worth. Instead, Donna had been sat down at one end of a conference table with the two agents sat down on either side of her, a tablet set up in front of one of them. The two agents didn't look like they had stepped out of a movie, either. The woman, Cooper, was middle-aged and unassuming, a little overweight and dressed almost casually. She wore a mask of professionalism, hammered into her expression, giving nothing at all away.

The other was called Lamar, younger than Cooper, stocky and dressed in an ill-fitting grey suit he'd tried to spice up with a bright yellow shirt.

They had picked her right from the gym and brought her here. If Donna had asked, she was sure they'd have been able to present her with all kinds of court-orders or perhaps the meaningful suggestion that they didn't actually need a judge's permission to do whatever they pleased.

She considered asking for a lawyer and hiding it behind a joke, but she suspected it wouldn't go over well.

Cooper said, "You have no idea why you're here."

"A friendly chat, coffee and pie?" Donna asked, forced a bright smile on her face.

Cooper didn't react to it at all, not even in a hint of annoyance.

"When you applied, you signed a waiver, you gave us permission to run a very thorough background check on you. Of course we have already been informed of your past and that's not a problem in itself. You bring experience to the job some college graduate will lack. Since you'll most likely be used for undercover work, that's invaluable. But some of your more recent activities raise questions we didn't expect."

"Do you have anything _specific _to say?" Donna asked. "Or are you just talking to fill the silence?"

She dropped the smile, it was clearly not working.

"We have several questions," Cooper said, unimpressed. "Let's start with your movement pattern. Since you live in Chicago it's fairly easy to gain a comprehensive map of where you've been in the past year, however, there are some odd discrepancies."

Cooper tapped something on the tablet, then turned it around and held it out in front of Donna.

"The GPS in your cellphone seems to cut out a lot," Cooper said.

Donna kept looking into Cooper's eyes for a long moment, before she let her gaze trail down to the tablet. She already had an idea what she was going to see, it helped a little to keep her features schooled. Whether she was good enough to fool Cooper or her silent partner was beyond her.

The tablet showed a map of Chicago with dots representing whatever anomaly Cooper had found. It wasn't a difficult guess, even before Donna identified some of the addresses marked on the map.

"Maybe the phone's just broken," Donna offered.

"Possibly," Lamar cut in. "But we'll get to your phone in a moment."

"Besides," Cooper picked up again. "Your cellphone malfunction seems to depend at least partially on location."

She tilted the tablet until she could see it, reach out and tapped a button. Most of the dots vanished, but some remained. Her own apartment and some of Aiden's safe-houses.

Donna affected a frown. "That's coincidence," she said. She pointed at the screen. "That's where I live. I heard ctOS has weird blind spots, maybe that's just it?"

"We checked that," Lamar said. "Our Blume liaison was oddly evasive on the subject of ctOS blind spot, but she was very adamant that they do not produce errors like this. Blume sent us their analysis, I'm sure it's been tampered with to hide their company's dirty secrets, but there are enough times when ctOS coverage of these areas is flawless."

"What about…" Donna shrugged helplessly. "Temporal outages?"

"They would've been logged and Blume would know about them."

Donna stared at Lamar. She didn't have any idea what to say next and she just hoped they'd interpret her silence as confused innocence.

"We looked at your cellphone," Lamar said. It was lying on table in front of him, but he wasn't looking down at it, rather focussed earnestly on Donna. "It's OS seems to have been tampered with quite expertly. We can only tell that a number of texts and phone calls has recently been deleted beyond recovery."

Donna bared her teeth. "So what? I don't get along with people sometimes, so I delete them. That's unusual and I'm _pretty _sure it's not illegal."

"How did you delete this information?"

Donna pulled a face, raised her eyebrows. "Some app I got off the internet, I think."

A sudden smile broke through Lamar's stern facade. He shook his head. "No, nothing off the internet does that."

"Well, it's true," Donna said.

Lamar made a low sound of disbelief. He shook his head, "We also checked out your contacts."

Donna shrugged, kept her gaze fixed on him, though she was acutely aware of Cooper's attention on the edge of her vision. She realised that the two of them probably knew how to work together. While one talked, the other was free to observe, and by switching the ball between them, they kept their target off balance.

Normally, it would raise Donna hackles, at the obvious disrespect and the unabashed manipulation. This time, from the moment she'd seen Aiden's safe-houses highlit on the map, she knew whatever they were charging her with, she was probably guilty of it. She didn't know how much they had puzzled together already, whether they'd already handed this back to Blume or Bloodhound.

If some move had already been made against Aiden, Cooper and Lamar would've mentioned it by now, wouldn't they? They seemed to be fishing, though she had the bait firmly down her throat already.

Lamar picked up her phone, tapped on it and a moment later, the dial tone from her phone's speakers filled the otherwise empty conference room.

"_Chances are you dialed this number by mistake. If so, hang up now. If you're trying to find me, you're not going to, so hang up now. There won't be a beep."_

Deftly, Lamar put the phone back down. "We tried tracking that," he said.

Donna realised she'd closed her eyes the moment the call had connected. She forced them to open again, meet Lamar's gaze steadily and keep playing her part. She'd done that eleven months, once. Homeland Security agents were _nothing _compared to what she'd had to face.

"And?" she prompted. She wasn't going to do their work for them.

"We couldn't," Lamar said. "But we analysed the voice and Blume's graciously given us the match. However, while the computer is very sure the voice matches one Gary Villeneuve, however, our own system is unable to verify the result."

"Do you remember him?" Cooper asked. "He enjoyed a brief moment of unintended internet fame last summer, when he and his fiancee were filmed indulging themselves in public."

"Yes, I remember," Donna glowered a little. "I had a chat with Bloodhound over that whole thing."

She leaned forward. "Look, I don't know what's going on. ctOS is buggy as hell, everyone knows that. It fucks up all the time. Nothing that comes out of that system is reliable."

"Yes, maybe," Cooper said. She pulled the tablet back to her, swiped around on it for a time. "Even though ctOS misidentified you, your cellphone seems to have been right there when Mr. Villeneuve had his little misadventure."

Donna spread out her arms. "How precise is that anyway? I was probably just walking down the street on the other side of the building, or something." She bared her teeth a little. "My virgin eyes were spared the sight, though."

Cooper lowered the tablet and Donna felt oddly exposed with the tiny barrier was suddenly taken down. Cooper pinned her with her gaze, enough to make the air between them sizzle.

"Do you know Aiden Pearce?" she asked. "Chicago's vigilante boogeyman?"

"I saw him a few times," Donna said. "He saved me. You _know _that."

"Yes, it's in your files," she glanced down briefly. "However, that is _not _what I was asking. Are you — or were you — in contact with him?"

"No," Donna said. It wasn't, after all, the first time she told that particular lie. She hadn't expected the way her throat closed down, however. Leaving Aiden had been one of the hardest things she'd ever done. Coming to New Mexico had helped, though not as much as she had hoped. She kept telling herself her decision was final, but if she really believed that, why would she have to repeat it all the time?

Now was the worst possible time to ponder these things. Donna pulled herself together before Cooper had a chance to interpret her sudden pensiveness.

Cooper said, "So the fact that your GPS malfunctions match up with a call to the CPD's tip-line on more than one occasion is just chance? That untraceable contact on your phone? The 'internet app' that deletes stuff so perfectly even we can't recover it? All just coincidences?"

"You'll have to prove they aren't," Donna pointed out through her teeth.

"I have one last question," Cooper said as if Donna had never challenged her at all. "The tracking devise in your neck. I understand it cannot be removed."

"No, it can't," Donna said roughly.

"You had an appointment with Blume to have it deactivated, but you cancelled it."

"Blume designed the devise for Quinn. I didn't trust them?"

Cooper glanced down on her tablet again, pretending to confirm something she clearly already knew. She looked up again. "I see, but isn't it worse, knowing the devise is still live?"

Donna frowned. At this point, she had expected practically anything. Anything _else. _The tracking devise had been safely out of her life, at least that's what she had thought.

"What do you mean?"

"We thought the tracking devise could be a security risk if you went undercover, so we checked with Blume to confirm it was non-functional. They told us you never showed up and it turns out the devise is still working. Why is that?"

Donna didn't know if Cooper had time to register the shock on her face. For the moment, Donna couldn't have cared less, either. Her hand came up of its own volition to press fingers into her neck to the border of pain. No doubt, Cooper would spot it and use it, but then the shrill noise of the fire alarm cut through the tension.

Donna startled and Cooper and Lamar exchanged a quick glance. Especially Cooper seemed displeased by the interruption, but both agents got their feet, Cooper quickly gathering the tablet while Lamar pocketed Donna's cellphone.

"We're not done," Cooper said as she ushered Donna out in the hallway, where other employees of the centre were already making for the fire exits. Some seemed already panicky, others were treating it more like a welcome cigarette break and took a leisurely stroll.

Cooper and Lamar did their level best to keep Donna in their sight in the mass of people spilling into the bitter cold outside. Donna shivered in the hoodie she wore, pulled her shoulders up and tried to stick close to the wall and out of the wind.

She wasn't allowed to stay there. A firefighter appeared and gently reminded her to keep clear of the building.

Donna crossed the street to where a café was overrun by refugees. She didn't have any money on her, but she guessed no one would mind if she just stood around. At some point, she'd lost Cooper and Lamar, or at least she couldn't see them anymore.

"Uh, sorry?" a male voice said behind her and when she turned she looked into the face of a very confused teenager. He held a phone in his hand. "There's… someone who wants to talk with you… I think?"

She almost felt sorry for him and despite the utter turmoil in her head, she managed to spare him a quick smile. "Shit, sorry," she said. "I'll just be a minute."

Not like she could come up an explanation for this, anyway. She took his phone and turned in the crowd slowly until she spotted a surveillance camera in the corner of the café. Since ctOS 2.0 had rolled out across the country, all major cities were in the network already. Here in Artesia, work was just starting on the infrastructure, but the camera was clearly already plugged in.

She put the phone to her ear and said, "Why is the tracking devise on?"

_"I turned it back on. In case there was an emergency. Listen, you should've told me you were training at FLETC. None of my smoke-screens will stand up to the kind of background check Homeland Security can run. But they can't charge you with anything, there's no solid evidence. Withdraw your application and they'll end up letting you go." _

"I don't care about that!" she snapped. She felt the teen still hovering close by and she drew a few other irate looks. "What about the tracking devise? You said it was off_. _Ray said it was off."

_"It was off. T-Bone's work is solid. I turned it back on later."_

It felt like forever until she could find anything to say, or at least until she could figure out what to say _first. _The press of people all around her left her in an odd cocoon of privacy. Everyone around her could listen in, but strangely enough, no one was. Everyone was chatting, talking about the fire, speculating about it. Only the teen whose phone she held paid her any attention at all and he seemed entirely to confused to make sense of what was going on.

"Why would you do that?"

_"For emergencies. Donna, you _need _to fix this first. The fire's just a distraction, it won't last. I need time to find something to keep Homeland Security off your back. I can stop this from leaking back to CPD and Bloodhound, at least for now. You have to keep playing dumb until then. Lawyer up, it'll buy me time." _

"And the tracking devise?"

_"I can't turn it off remotely." _

She was still freezing from the cold, reeling from the interrogation before. Her neck was itching, but she knew nothing she could do would help. Aiden sounded honest, but if she had learned nothing else in the past hour, then it was how well he could fake it.

"Don't worry about me," she told Aiden and didn't give him time to reply. She cut the connection, smiled fleetingly at the teen and handed him the phone back.

The moment it was done, her anger had already began to turn into a slow-burning rage. She knew the ambiguity of her parting words, she knew Aiden could understand it as a threat. She didn't know if she really had enough to endanger him. The addresses of his safe-houses, but he would burn them too easily. She could testify against him, but that would require CPD to catch him first and she didn't think she could help with that.

And the truth was, she still didn't want to betray him on that scale. Lash out, perhaps, hurt him in some way, but even that seemed a petty thing. If she could, she'd walk away from all of it, from Chicago and him and her own past. Find some place far away and start over, get it right this time.

She huddled into her hoodie before she stepped back outside. Smoke was coming from several upper story windows in the building across the street. She heard someone mention that a fuse had blown and set an office on fire. She still couldn't find Lamar and Cooper among the crowd and decided to head home.

Perhaps a walk in the cold would clear her head.

* * *

"_Chances are you dialed this number by mistake. If so, hang up now. If you're trying to find me, you're not going to, so hang up now. There won't be a beep."_

"Hey, answer your phone, I'm back in Chicago and I need the tracking devise turned off for good. … Damn, Aiden, I still don't know what you were thinking. After everything I've told you about it. What it means for me? After everything? I just can't… I went to _you_ with this because I wouldn't trust anyone else. Because there was no one else I'd want to mess with something so important to me. That tracking devise, let me tell what it is. Let me tell you _again, _because it turns out you weren't listening. That tracking devise, it's a leash. I'm not my own person while that thing is there. I don't belong to myself. I belong to Lucky or that nightclub and to anyone who pays up. And now that's you, too. Because the leash is still there and you're the one holding it. It…"

_"Donna, I…"_

"So you have been listening, that's what I thought."

_"I haven't. There was some… trouble, I couldn't answer."_

"Yeah, just so you know, Cooper is running scared, promised to drop everything. She was close to tears. Whatever you did, I doubt she deserved it. But I guess my career isn't as ruined as it could've been… Can you turn it off?"

_"I'm sorry it happened."_

"No, I don't believe you. You're just sorry I found out."

_"I'm sorry about your _career. _You'd have been a good agent."_

"And not sorry about the tracking devise. Too little honesty, Aiden, and far too late. But maybe it's my fault, too. There's a side of you you've been very careful not to show me. Now I think all versions of you are true, what law enforcement says and the face you've been showing me and everything that scares the mob so much. I just didn't understand it before."

_"What do you blame me for?"_

"I blame you for lying. You lied to me just easily as to everyone else, but I'm sure I was an easy target."

_"You were never a 'target' of anything, Donna. I've never used the tracking devise and I disguised the signal, unless someone was specifically looking for it, they wouldn't be able to find it. The people around me are always in danger. I had to have something in case things turned bad."_

"Well, not this one. Not the tracking devise. Any danger in the world is better than that. I thought you understood. But, well, you don't have to worry about me anymore. I'm not _yours_ anymore. I shouldn't have to say it, but I've learned my lesson. The bad news is, we'll still be sharing the same city for a while. I have to wait until this blows over before I can ask for some kind of transfer. I trust the city is big enough for both of us."

_"I need my rig to turn it off. I can be home in two hours, if you want."_

"I want Ray to do it. Just Ray, not you."

_"I'll need time to arrange that." _

"I'm sure. You know what? Forget it. I'm going to Blume. They offered to do it the first time, I'm sure they'll manage."

_"You can't. That is… you shouldn't. They'll recognise T-Bone's work and you'll never get them off your back. Let him turn it off, he knows what he's doing."_

"Great. So set me up. Soon, for preference."

_"Don't worry."_

"Don't worry? Don't… I have nothing more to say to you. Get it done."

_"Donna, that's not how I wanted it."_

"…"

_"Donna?"_

* * *

**To: **Donna Dean

**From: **AP

**Message: **You can contact T-Bone directly. 555-348-8453.

* * *

_End of _Nightcall_

* * *

**Closing Note: **I feel a bit bad for doing this, make no mistake. Sorry for the (uhm) inevitable heartbreak, but I had always planned to break them up in this two-fold way. (Except for an _extremely early _draft where Donna turned out to be really working for the cops and sold Aiden out in the end. I lost the urge to do that pretty damn quickly.) Nightcall was also sort of taking over everything and I needed to stop that.

However, I got a lot more invested in the two of them than I expected (you know, NOT A FAN OF ROMANCE DAMMIT!) Aiden and Donna were together for about nine month (no, that's not a hint, they were careful.) **Plenty of gaps for me to fill! **You haven't seen the last of them.

I started and I finished with a phone conversation (or very nearly so) I count that as a win.


	29. Mimicry

_Thanks to Esquire-man for the spark of inspiration! _

* * *

**Author's Note: **I'm not sure if Profiler output is random for this guy. At any rate, I made him younger than what Profiler gave me.

* * *

[summary: take care the road you choose.]

[takes place in 2014, right before bad blood: fox hunt]

**_Mimicry**

* * *

Aiden Pearce leans his shoulder into the rusting metal of the broken container. It's a pose of studied casualness with the light at his back and the preceding violence still cackling in the air like electricity, ready to leap. He's synced the phones and now uses his own to browse the files. The other phone rests in his hand, relaxed by his side. He's put his gun away, into the holster on his shoulder and his battered coat has fallen down to hide it.

A few random drops of rain skitter inside, form tiny puddles on the uneven floor and water runs down the container to where a man is cowering. The water has wet his knees where he hasn't picked himself back up. If he stood up, both men would be the same height or very nearly so. The man is ten years Pearce's junior, almost to a day, and his body has been sculpted within the confines of a gym. There is nothing in his record that implies he's ever fought anything more dangerous than an exercise machine.

Profiles identifies him as _[Rennie Guilio, 29, geologist]._

He has some skill, but he has never had to put it to the test and there is no true grit. He's already broken before the contest has began. Pearce finally looks up and his cool gaze pins him in place.

"You're him, aren't you? You're the vigilante!" the man says, at long last. He sits up, begins to stand, but doesn't go through with it.

Pearce only looks back at him, silent for too long until the other man can't stand it anymore.

"I thought you were gone!" Rennie gasps.

"Just because _you _couldn't see me?" Pearce asks. He seems cooly amused and furious in equal measure, but the shadows of his cap hide most of his face from sight. He hasn't pushed his mask down all the way.

"What you do," Rennie says and he sounds pleading. He spreads his hands out as he speaks. Water drips from his dark gloves. "It matters to this city and then… suddenly… you were just gone."

"So?"

"Someone has to do the work," Rennie says and he genuinely believes it. It's in the voice, on the edge of trembling but full of conviction. He's too lost and confused, too cold and wet, and Pearce has had him stuffed in the trunk of a car none too gently. Rennie doesn't understand how to read this man, he can only grope blindly for answers and cling to the idea in his own head until the idol inevitably falls short of it.

"The work," Pearce repeats. "What's that?"

Rennie flounders. He pulls himself up, gaining strength from the mere fact that they are talking at all.

"I've read everything I could on you. All the news and on the internet? You help! Everything the cops can't or won't do. That's you," Rennie says and his voice jumps up and down in his own excitement. "ctOS and Blume and all the corruption. I know that was you, too. You took down Lucky Quinn and the Black Viceroys are in shambles! That's all _you. _But then you were gone and… we have the Militia and the Club fighting it out on _our _streets. People are dying! Like we're suddenly a third world country. And the cops stand there and watch. Someone had to do something!"

Pearce still watches him. He hasn't moved, not even the twitch of a muscle and Rennie should be forgiven to misinterpret his stillness for passivity.

Pearce says, "You shouldn't believe everything you find on the internet."

Rennie thinks on it, silently, a frown on his pale face and his eyes faintly feverish. "You weren't gone?" he concludes.

Pearce shakes his head. "Not that part," he says, but Rennie doesn't get it, fails to hear the warning.

"Do you…" Rennie starts and stops. He's stumbling in the dark, doesn't know what to make of this, where it will go — he doesn't even know where it came from. "Do you need help?" he asks finally. "I can help!"

There is something odd in the way Pearce does not just laugh him off, but he moves his head a little before he says, "You don't get it."

Rennie takes a step forward. Where he is, the water is ankle deep, it must have filled his boots by now, must be uncomfortable and cold, but he either doesn't notice or doesn't care. "You think I'm an idiot, don't you?" he asks. "Bit off more than I could chew. _Of course_ I did! But someone _had _to. I'm learning! I'm not there, but… if you teach me?"

"Yeah," Pearce agrees. "You're an idiot."

He starts to turn away, then stops on the threshold of the container. "Go home," he says without looking at Rennie. "Play a video game, jerk off, find a new job, do what normal people do. Stay away from this shit."

Water splashes loudly as Rennie crosses the container, so fast, he's breathing hard after only a few steps. He catches up to Pearce and the only reason he gets a hand on his arm is because Pearce doesn't think he's a threat.

Pearce stills in Rennie's grip, a mere courtesy, turns his head to look at him. He's already passed outside and the pallid light finds his face, but it leaves his expression untouched and unchanged.

"Wait, no!" Rennie almost shouts. His eyes are wide. "I can help! I swear! Whatever you need, there must be something, right? I can't just waste my life for nothing! It has to _mean _something!"

"Let go of me," Pearce says without raising his voice, but a slight growl slides in behind his words.

Rennie blinks, looks down where his fingers are clutching at Pearce's arm. He opens his hand and holds it emptily in the air, awkward until he lets it drop by his side. Dejectedly, he mutters, "So-sorry."

He avoids Pearce's gaze, lets it circle around him before he brings it back. The slivers of hope in Rennie's eyes haven't gone away. "Please?" he says.

Pearce looks on the ground in front of him, contemplative, then he turns and faces Rennie, who's raised an inch above by the container he's still standing in.

"Just so we're clear," Pearce says. "You aren't gonna stop, are you? You're gonna do it anyway."

Rennie nods, he thinks he sees the silver lining and the reflection is already there, colouring his cheeks and threatening to break his expression into a smile. If he'd dared, he'd reach for Pearce again and shake his hand in gratitude.

"I _have_ to," Rennie says.

Pearce's eyes narrow at the washed out expression. No, he _doesn't _have to. No one does, not even Pearce himself, though it's not a thought he entertains often and when it sneaks up on him, he has too many easy ways to distract himself. But Rennie doesn't even have Pearce's excuses, no Freudian tragedy, no overwhelming guilt. He's just a guy rendered a little crazy by the sheer ordinariness of his own life.

Pearce has already gone too far to turn back, if only in his own mind. He likes to think he understands his own shortcomings too well. He has no patience to spare for those who don't.

"Alright," Pearce says.

He turns and throws Rennie's phone at him. He catches it awkwardly as it hits his chest and he has to flail before he can get it back in his hands. He looks down at it, then back at Pearce.

"You know about this island?" Pearce asks, makes a gesture with one hand. "It's a ctOS blind spot. The bridges aren't networked, but I put a one-time hack on your phone so you can leave. It gets you _home_," he says, stresses the word, but he doesn't think it will connect. "Or, you stay. Some fixers sometimes come here by boat. I've been staking them out, something's going down tonight. You wanna play? Here's your game."

There's a part of Rennie still capable of reasonable thinking and it's that part that makes him hesitate, look up from his phone to study Pearce in the vain hope to make sense of anything about him at all.

"If you screw up," Pearce continues his low-voiced narrative. "If the fixers catch you, they'll put you down, they _won't_ let you off with a warning and a bloody nose."

"No, I'll be careful!" Rennie insisted. "What… when I manage to do this? Will you take me on?"

Pearce arches his eyebrows and then shakes his head. Something akin to sadness comes into his voice. "You'll be dead tomorrow," he says. "But I'm not going to stop you."

Rennie sucks in a breath through his opened mouth, about to say something — some meaningless denial and equally meaningless assurance for his own benefit — but Pearce doesn't stay to listen.

Rennie watches him as he walks back to his car and gets in. The engine's roar is unexpectedly loud. The rain has softened the ground and the car leaves deep gashes behind as Pearce drives away. The bridge ahead shudders into place for him and then returns to its position above the water.

Rennie looks at his phone and spots the icon for the bridge hack Pearce mentioned. For a brief moment, he considers. He thinks of going home, but he can't quite picture it. He remembers why he's started in the first place, because Pearce seemed to have vanished and handed the city back to its dishonest leaders.

No, he can't let it go and maybe he shouldn't. It's a test. Pearce is just testing him and his rude behaviour is just the way he is. Every hero is shaped by his tragedies and Rennie will not judge Pearce for how he deals with it. Underneath it all, Pearce cares, Rennie is certain of it. Pearce won't let him come to harm over nothing but a test.

The wind picks up and Rennie retreats into the container. He'll need a better hiding spot, he decides. He'll document the fixers on his phone, make sure the evidence was so bullet-proof no amount of bribery can save them. And then, Pearce will let him work with him. Perhaps he can be a student and Pearce the mentor. They can turn this entire city around, together.

* * *

_End of _Mimikry_

* * *

**Author's Note: **I think I've burned myself out a bit with Nightcall, so just a small offering to keep myself writing. Enjoy!

"Take Care the Road You Choose" is also a pretty good song by Richard Thompson.

* * *

_**Revised **on 01/June/2015 and 01/June/2016_


	30. Class Act - Part 1

**Author's Note: **There's a _real _Kinderhook in Illinois. _This _Kinderhook is closer to Chicago, just beyond Pawnee.

The game kind of contradicts itself about Jordi. It clearly implied Aiden met Jordi only _after _Lena's death. At the same time, from Aiden's audio logs I always got the impression they had known each other a lot longer than that.

Multitasking is a fucking pain to write. I'm not doing so great with writing Jordi. Bad technobabble is bad. And there's a very weird Drive quote in this.

* * *

[summary: remember kinderhook?]

[takes place in december 2012]

**_Class Act – Part 1**

* * *

Places like Pawnee aspired to be like this. A tightly knit community of well-to-do families, set within dense green forests and lush fields and meadows. Kinderhook had only one main street with a handful of streets branching off for those house nestled within even larger, even better kept gardens. It was close enough for people to commute to Chicago comfortably for work and far enough away so the dangerous bustle of the city didn't reach them. All the dregs were already washed up in Pawnee, where they tended to stay out of convenience and necessity rather than look further for the fortune they had lost.

Snow had come only after Christmas and put a thin blanket over the decorations on every house and every garden, softened what few edges there were in the first place. It muffled every sound and shifted Kinderhook into a place of peaceful timelessness.

_Hooked, Line and Sinker _was a motel just outside Kinderhook, somewhat shabby, it had had the courtesy to be around a bend and out of sight of the town itself, serving the through-traffic rather than the tourists who preferred to stay in a cosy bed-and-breakfast in Kinderhook itself.

Pearce didn't knock. _Of course _he didn't knock, even if he didn't have his arms full of rolled up sheets of paper and a bag stuffed full with some more of it, he wouldn't have knocked. He barely bothered to do a double-take either, while Jordi and the woman on the bed rocked into abrupt stillness. The springs of the bed twanged, however.

The woman threw her head around, blond hair flying in a wide circle so she could glare at Pearce.

He kicked the door shut behind him, stomped through the room and put the paper on the table, dropping the bag on the chair beside it before he turned to face the bed.

"Jordi, what the fuck?" he asked.

"Funny you should put it that way," Jordi said, grinning past the woman's flawless tits.

The woman brought her head back around, put the glare on Jordi. "Hey, you didn't say there was gonna be another one."

Jordi shrugged, arching his brows high and badly faked innocence. "He wasn't supposed to be back." He looked back at Pearce. "Didn't you say the town archive was closed?"

"You actually thought that'd slow me down?"

Pearce pulled his cap from his head, brushed some melting snow from it and put it away, then dragged his coat off. He frowned at the woman, then back at Jordi. "What's this?" he asked and another man might have rolled his eyes. "You've been stalking me for two weeks so I help you with this job and that's the teamwork I get?"

Neither Jordi nor his prostitute had time to phrase a reply, because Pearce had ran out of patience by the time he'd finished the question. He crossed to the bed, closed a hand around the woman's arm and dragged her to her feet before she remembered to struggle much, she only yelped in surprise before Pearce set her on her feet and let go.

"Woah, you want to see the goods, you can just ask," Jordi complained, but took his time in tossing the blanket over himself and resettling on the bed with an arm tucked behind his neck.

Pearce gathered the woman's clothes, or at least all the pieces he could spot easily, and shoved them in her hands.

"Relax," he said to Jordi as he ushered the woman to the door. "I see better every time I piss."

He opened the door, shoved her outside and closed the door in her face. After a moment of stunned silence, she started cursing them both loudly as she apparently marched down the hallway.

"Can we get this back on track?" Pearce asked in a tone of voice that didn't invite debate.

He returned to the table and started unrolling the paper, which turned out to be blueprints of the Kinderhook Communal Bank. He put a fake plant on one corner, his gun in another to keep the paper flat as it tried to coil in on itself again. He sorted the blueprints, pushed them around until he could fit both the ground floor and the basement on the table.

Jordi took his time, still undecided if he was annoyed with his comrade-in-arms or if he was willing to take Pearce just as he was, because he didn't have much of an option anyway. Nine years of having the great fortune of being on the same side as Pearce and Jordi had learned a few things. For one, it was a good thing for both of them, because Pearce was the second best marksman Jordi knew, he hit about as hard as an oncoming train and he was exactly as easy to slow down or sway from his chosen course.

In all that time, Jordi had rarely seen him express an emotion other than gruff impatience, broken up only rarely by some acidic imitation of humour. Even so, it had been a bad year all its own. So dragging Pearce out of Chicago should've netted Jordi at least _some _gratitude. The man was definitely stuck, not a lead on his niece's killer and it was beginning to affect his performance and his drinking habit.

"How do you feel about an old-fashioned heist?" Pearce asked, leaning over the blue-prints. "Don't see any other way inside."

"Not done one of those in a while," Jordi said. He pulled himself up and wrapped a blanket around his hips, trailing it across the floor as he stepped in by Pearce's side, peering over his shoulder. "All the surveillance and silent alarms and time-locks take all the fun out of it."

"I can take care of most of them," Pearce said. "Time-locks are a problem, but they usually only have them on the vault, especially small banks like this."

"I'm not robbing a bank without getting at the vault," Jordi said. "And we need to cover our tracks. We break open just one safety deposit box? Everyone knows what we were after."

"Speaking of which," Pearce said, straightened away and half-turned until he could fix on Jordi. "What _are _we after?"

"A flash drive, like I told you," Jordi said. "I'm not going to divulge my employers, but…"

_"Our _employers, just so we're clear."

Jordi wagged his head and took a step back. "You," he stretched the word like chewing gum and put one hand up in a placating gesture, the other hand was holding on to the blanket casually, "won't like it. Why ruin a good thing, right?"

And of course Pearce wasn't capable of letting it go. He narrowed his eyes and said nothing until Jordi gave a long-suffering sigh and retreated back to the bed, set down on the edge. Good thing he didn't feel exposed stark naked, because otherwise this whole thing might have turned a bit uncomfortable. He gave the blanket a little kick with his foot to untangle his legs.

"Story time," Jordi announced with gritty cheerfulness. "There is a project head at Blume, who kind of got the job because he'd been sleeping with the boss and he wasn't quite qualified all the way. So when one of his team decided to walk out of there with a flash drive full of vital data, he didn't really want to tell anyone. Since his recent promotion came with a lovely pay-rise, he didn't have to. Instead, he hired yours truly to retrieve the drive before his wayward team member can sell the information to the highest bidder. You see, we aren't _really _working for Blume."

"Blume data," Pearce said thoughtfully.

"Oh no no no, you can't keep it," Jordi insisted. "I don't double-cross my clients. Gives you a bad rep in the field and the next thing you know people suddenly think they don't have to pay your asking price anymore. And then I have to barter for long, painful minutes and not shoot the guy in the head. It really kills the mood."

"Who said I wanted to keep it?" Pearce asked back and his face almost _almost _broke into a smirk. "I'm just going to make a copy."

"I'm serious, Pearce, it leaks, I'm so haunting you for the rest of your miserable little life."

"Come on, you know I'm not going to sell it."

Jordi pulled the corner of his mouth up, exposing a bright white canine. "You'll just abuse the hell out of it. Like no one would know."

"No one will know," Pearce said, but it wasn't very reassuring. He made a vague gesture with one hand, studying Jordi as if for the first time. "Why aren't you dressed yet?"

"I work best without my pants." It was a cheap shot, admittedly, but the best he could do considering his rapidly blackening mood. Just because Pearce seemed deadset on dying a frigid virgin didn't mean everyone else had to share his plight. Come to think of it, sending the girl away was a little ill-considered. Certainly Pearce could do with a bit of professional help.

"That explains a lot," Pearce shrugged, bent to pick up his phone from the pocket of his coat. "Maybe try it with pants on sometime. Things can only improve."

* * *

Kinderhook's idyll was nerve-wrecking in its dullness. It made staking out the bank a pain because after the first two days, locals seemed to take note of them and Pearce called it off after that. There was a chance they'd be taken for tourists, but it wouldn't hold up to the natural suspicions of the townsfolk. It was more likely they'd be taken for criminals staking out the bank and that wasn't going to be a healthy thing to project.

Not that there was much to see about the bank, anyway. It was a small building, greek-temple style in pale stone with ornate windows hidden behind elaborate metal grills. Massive metal gates closed it off at night and after a brief debate, they discarded the idea of going in that way. They'd be in full view from half the town while they worked. Kinderhook had only a small police presence, but backup from Chicago could be there before they finished.

Seated on the table in Jordi's motel room, Pearce very carefully outlined the game-plan they had worked out before while Jordi sprawled on the bed and seemed to be listening only with one ear, but it was for show only.

"I can hack into the bank's server. Banks are tough, but I already got my inroad, so it shouldn't be a problem. I'm guessing the mark is using some kind of cover identity, which means we'll probably have to work through all the bank's clients. The mark's a former Blume employee, so he'll know how to cover the ctOS angle." He shrugged as he spoke. "Bit of legwork, but easy. Once we narrow it down, I get the company who installed the safety deposit box to send out replacement keys. We'll need to waylay the delivery and make sure nothing comes back to the bank about it. Tricky, but doable."

Jordi rolled over, sat up against the headboard and hacked the edge of a boot into the soft bedding. "Let me pick holes in that one for you. I once had this job where I had to hijack a special delivery and these guys just _never_ stop phoning home. There isn't a red traffic light they don't have to report. We hijack _this _delivery, why wouldn't they spill immediately?"

"It just has to be a good story," Pearce said. "Look, the guys who drive these trucks, they are just doing their job. No one tells them shit about anything. They get called back for some plausible reason, more than likely, they'll just shrug it off, badmouth their boss and do it."

"Sounds unnecessary complicated to me," Jordi said, arching his brows, but then he shrugged half-heartedly. "Why don't we just kill them and leave them on the side of the road? Sure, the phoning home thing, but they'd still take a while to figure it all out."

"That's the alternative, actually," Pearce said. "It'll shrink our time slot, but it'd work. Keep it in mind if they turn out to be difficult."

"What? None of that _spare them all _thing you've got going for a few months now? I knew you'd get bored of it eventually."

Pearce frowned at him, pretended to think, but it was fooling no one. He'd already made up his mind ages ago. "I'm not gonna fight you on this. And I know how you work."

"You won't argue?" Jordi with exaggerated disbelief.

"No, I won't. It's not worth it."

Or maybe it was not worth it because something had clicked in Pearce the moment the prospect of vital Blume data had entered the picture. If not for Jordi's unwillingness to actually _share _that data, he'd have used it as bait right from the start. Should've known Pearce wouldn't be happy working in the dark.

Pearce trying to 'clean up' his act since that unfortunate accident had been a somewhat weird sight to behold. For a time, Jordi had been vaguely worried Pearce would lose it entirely, but he seemed to have reached a point of balance after all. He didn't seem to have lost all his edge, either, so perhaps there was hope for him.

Pearce pointedly changed the topic when he continued, "Next, you march in the front door."

"All by my lonesome?"

"Sort of, I can keep the room under surveillance through their own cameras. I should be able to access them through the bank's system. You just snatch some employee, march them down to the basement, plant some explosives on the vault, raid the safety deposit boxes with the keys, blow the vault — or not, it doesn't have to work, it's just a distraction. You get the drive, a couple of other stuff from other boxes. You leave. I'll pick you up outside and we're gone from Dullsville never to return."

Jordi leaned his head back into the wall, grinned at Pearce. "Nothing can go wrong," he declared in a tone of use usually reserved to pronounce the opposite. He was perfectly fine with either alternative.

"You can hire one or two fixers to back you up in the bank, but it's not necessary. I can jam the silent alarms and I can lock the front doors, so no one leaves while you're downstairs. You'll just have to give them a bit of a scare and they'll not fight back. Try not to kill anyone, because that gets the cops all riled up and I don't want to have to lie low."

Pearce turned to his laptop he had open on the table in front of him. After a moment, he angled the screen towards Jordi.

"There's ctOS surveillance all around the bank, but if you take that route, your face won't be visible unless you look directly at a camera."

"Their loss, really."

"Or you give them your best smile and enjoy the attention," Pearce shrugged.

"Nah, not like they can afford me," Jordi shook his head. "What about the armament?"

"I usually come to you with that sort of thing," Pearce pointed out. "You handle it. I got my hands full already."

"Division of labour, like the conservatives keep preaching," Jordi said, pounced to his feet and snatched his jacket from where it lay draped at the foot of the bed. "Sure, I'll bring the boom. Gotta meet my guy in Chicago. You don't need me here?"

"No. But while you're at it, we could do with a getaway car. Ours have been seen around town already."

"No problem," Jordi said, put his hand to the door, but winked back at Pearce over his shoulder. "Get us something _nice_. Don't wait up, could be late. Remember, don't do something I wouldn't!"

He yanked the door open, made a flourishing gesture, and swept out.

Pearce muttered, "There are things you wouldn't do?"

* * *

The getaway car was a bright red Haikal R with squeaky clean plates and tinted windows for a modicum of privacy. Pearce had parked behind the store and set himself up in the driver's seat. He had one laptop put up against the wheel, another open by his side and his phone set up in the centre stack.

He was vaguely glad people in Kinderhook had already discovered the wonders of wifi, so he could use their routers to bounce his signal through them. He didn't expect much resistance today, he'd been in and out of their system often enough these past few days, he was fairly sure he hadn't raised any alarms. Some more talented programmer would look at the bank's software after today, probably close all his backdoors and redact the administrator access he'd given himself, but he'd made very sure none of it could be traced past the Kinderhook routers he'd hijacked.

Earlier in the day, Pearce and Jordi had both left the motel at different times and in different directions, regrouped and circled back to Kinderhook. Eventually, some witness would produce a serviceable description of either of them, but ctOS had nothing to identify them by.

"Okay, Jordi," Pearce said. "I'm ready."

_"Just taking a stroll," _Jordi said through the earpiece. _"It's kind of a nice day for a heist, if you ask me. Have you seen that Christmas decoration? Almost warms my heart." _

Pearce logged into the bank's cameras and distributed their feeds across his two screens. Late in the day, there was only one customer in the bank, an elderly man taking his sweet time chatting with one of two front desk employees. The manager and two more employees were in their offices. A security guard stood by the door, trying to appear watchful, but obviously not expecting trouble and looking forward to pack up work.

Pearce ran Profiler over them all and skimmed the data as it scrolled down. Some cursory search gave him a bit of background on all of them, sorting them into categories for Jordi.

"Seven people in the bank right now," he said. "One customer, four employees, the manager and a security guard. Guard's left of the door, he's half asleep on his feet and he's recently let his gym membership run out."

_"He'll come to regret that decision," _Jordi said cheerfully. _"Maybe we'll help him turn his life around. We are doing a public service, come to think of it. All those people! Think of the excitement! I mean, have you seen this place?" _

"Let me guess, almost warms your heart?" Pearce asked as he clicked his way through the others.

_"Yeah, you know, if I had one?"_

"That's what I was thinking," Pearce agreed. "Old man's leaving, I don't know where you are exactly, but maybe avoid looking right at him and don't make eye contact, he'll remember you."

_"Outside a little blue house. Ah, I see him, he's heading the other way, no problem. Any tips for inside?" _

"Take the dark-haired woman on the right," Pearce said. "Her name's Christina, she'll do what you tell her."

_"You just know that? Like magic." _

"Yeah, it's one of those things you wanted me on this job for," Pearce said. "She's been posting online in a support forum for domestic abuse victims. Dominant males frighten her. She won't fight back. _Magic._"

_"You're wasted as a good guy."_

The bank had one camera monitoring the front door and the sidewalk a few yards in either direction. A young woman came around the corner and hurried into the bank.

"Okay, the woman," Pearce said. "… wait… oh, fun. She works at the motel."

_"God, this place is tiny," _Jordi groaned. _"Do you think they have an inbreeding problem?" _

"Helps with the Christmas shopping," Pearce deadpanned. "Just, I don't know, get them to lie on the floor with their faces down."

_"You don't have to talk me through it. Let me roll and it'll be fine."_

Jordi walked inside the bank, going at a leisurely stride to give Pearce some time to map the place ahead of him and give any other useful information. The automatic doors slid closed behind him. He was turned so the security guard couldn't see his face and the other employees hadn't paid him much attention yet.

He took one more step and stopped when his phone buzzed.

"What?" Pearce demanded. He reached for his own phone while he watched Jordi pull his out of the pocket.

_"Oh," _Jordi said again. Coming from Jordi this type of worried sound couldn't be a good sign. In fact, it probably foretold the apocalypse. Quickly, Pearce reached for his own phone, accessed the backdoor he'd installed in Jordi's phone a few months ago and took a look at the call.

"Why is Blume calling you?"

_"Are you in my phone?"_

When Pearce took over the call, Jordi's phone stopped buzzing. _"Was that you?" _he asked and sounded displeased enough. There was a moment of silence and then Jordi said, _"I won't let you hear the end of it."_

Pearce said, "I'll handle it, you do your thing."

_"Just so you know," _Jordi said. _"Those videos belong to a client." _

"I'm sure I haven't seen them," Pearce assured him. He muted his mic and finally picked up the call. "Yeah?"

He ran a trace on the call, but didn't expect to get much of a useful result. The trace hit a solid wall and nothing more useful than 'Blume HQ' came out of it. A simple internet search, however, told him the number belonged to a Blume employee, head of a systems integration team. Jordi's client, no doubt.

_"Mr…. uh… Chin?" _

"Yeah."

Pearce kept an eye on Jordi through the cameras. The fixer walked inside the bank, took another moment to orient himself and wait for Pearce's directions. The automatic door slid closed behind him.

_"Uh, am I speaking with Mr. Chin?" _

"Yeah."

_"I, uh… uh…?" _

"Got a sore throat. Which part of 'don't call me, I'll call you' have you failed to understand?"

He switched to Jordi and said, "The manager's heading for the restroom and the security guard's giving you the evil eye. Stop posing and get moving."

Two men entered the bank right behind Jordi, but they gave him some space inside. One headed for the other employee behind the counter, the other hung back. A suspicious frown appeared on Pearce's face. They kept their faces out of sight of all cameras, Profiler reported an insufficient visibility error on both of them.

Pearce switched back to the Blume employee. "Time's a valuable commodity, mine especially, so talk fast."

_"Well, Mr. Chin, something happened and I need to call off the job."_

In the bank, Jordi stepped in close behind the young woman at Christina's counter. Delicately, he put a hand to her shoulder, pulled her back and out of the way. In a smoothly coordinated series of movement, Jordi drew a ski-mask over his head and pistol from the inside of his jacket. The young woman had stumbled in his grip, too stunned to do much else and before she had time to draw breath for a complaint, Jordi had the pistol aimed at her forehead. At the same time, he'd taken a silenced SMG from the bag around his shoulder and held it toward Christina.

Pearce sealed the bank's door and after a short glance at the clock, let the metal grills drop outside the door and the windows. They'd be closing for business in a few minutes anyway, no one would notice.

"You can't call off the job," Pearce told Jordi's client. "What happened? Cold feet, don't worry, I got you covered."

_"My boss, uh, found out data was stolen. And she's a, well… uh, short version: She knows what's going on and I think she's figured out who it was." _

Blume was in on it, then. All their fingers in the game. "We'll talk about this," Pearce told Jordi's client and hung up. He didn't have time to deal with him. If Blume was already on the trail these two men… and yes, Profiler managed to scan the face of one of the men and came up with a record so clean, Pearce could tell at a glance it was fake.

"Security guard," Pearce told Jordi. "Five o'clock."

Jordi whipped around, stepped close to the security guard and smacked him upside the chin with the pistol. The man reeled back, stumbled over his own feet and fell like a sack. Jordi was on him immediately, wrestled a taser from him and unceremoniously pushed it into the man's soft side. The guard jerked and twitched, then went limp.

Jordi took a step back from the two women and drew a slow circle, marking the people with both guns. The Blume men raised their hands, just like the women, but the moment Jordi turned away from them, the Blume man by the door put one hand back down and fumbled in his pocket.

Pearce zoomed the camera in, but couldn't make out what he was doing. It didn't seem to be a weapon, though. More likely, he was groping for his phone, hoping to call for backup. Blume had recently started bolstering its ranks with paramilitary types. They were kept to Blume HQ up in Pawnee and out of the public eye, but Blume was too big and too subtly clandestine not to need someone for the dirty work.

Pearce said, "The two men who came in behind you are Blume security."

Jordi turned to them, pointed a gun at each men, eyeing them up and down. He edged backward until he had them all in sight, but when neither attempted anything, he just rounded them up with the rest of the bank's staff. He shoved the pistol at Christina until she got her shaking hands to unlocked the way behind the counters and Jordi went through like a hurricane, his voice keeping up a steady, casual narrative as he rounded up everyone.

He disarmed everyone and stuffed their guns into his bag.

"Wait," Pearce said. "Can you bring me one of the Blume phones?"

Jordi hesitated, but knew better than to ask back while he was within earshot of the hostages. He snatched one of he phones up with a quick grin for the slightly baffled man.

_"Everyone," _Jordi said as he stood away from everyone. A head taller than her, he slung an arm around Christina's neck so the pistol rested on her sternum. Even through the video, Christina looked brittle and small. Pearce hoped he hadn't misjudged her, if she broke into hysterics, she'd be useless. Nevertheless, the physical contact was a good intimidation move.

_"Let's play a little game. It's called 'whoever moves first, dies first'. It's really fun, especially for me. I'll know if you try to cheat. I'm like God, omniscient." _

Pearce watched Jordi on the screen, considering. If Blume already knew the whole story, it actually made sense to call off the heist before it got too hot for either of them.

On the other hand, there was still a flash drive of important Blume data in a safety deposit box in that bank. Pearce couldn't guess what it was, at this point, whether he could even make any use of it, but could he afford to just let it slip through his fingers? The Profiler breach, the one he'd worked out with Damien was a _massive _asset in his hunt, not to mention it helped to pay for everything. If something on that drive gave him _more _access… and ctOS saw so much in this city. Perhaps it had seen the shooter, perhaps it knew where he could be found.

"Speed it up," Pearce told Jordi. "Forget about the vault, just get the drive."

_"Why the change of plan?"_ he asked as he walked Christina down a wide hallway to an elaborate metal door. _"Hey, I'm perfectly fine with aborting this entire thing if it fubars. Preferably _before _it does so."_

"No, keep going. Have a little faith, I know what I'm doing," Pearce said. "You're like a kid in a candy shop anyway."

_"I _was _before you went all concerned on me," _Jordi muttered while he briefly released Christina so she could unlock the door. _"What's going on out there? Are my hostages behaving?"_

Pearce picked up the cellphone signals from both Blume personnel, but he couldn't get access this quickly. He put a simple password cracker to task, but he didn't think he had time to let it run its course. Most of the other people in the bank stayed put, but Blume men sat back up after a long glance to where Jordi had gone. They said something to each other, nodded. One of them pulled his phone out, tapped something on it. The other one, without a phone, he turned slowly on his heels until he spotted one of the camera and looked directly at it.

"Don't worry," Pearce said. "Just don't waste any time."

Pearce's computers both made the same error sound simultaneously.

"Shit," Pearce muttered.

_"Was that a 'shit, things are going so well I'm getting a boner'? Or was that a 'shit is going to hit the fan like a landslide'?"_

Pearce wasn't paying attention. Two laptops and a smartphone had always been cutting it tight in terms of computing power, but it would've been more than sufficient to breach the bank's network. It was not _nearly_ sufficient to withstand a concerted attack backed by whatever Blume had under their belt. One by one, he lost the signal from the bank's cameras until only the one remained, with the Blume man staring at him through the lens as if he could see him try and fail to keep them out.

_"Hey, I'm talking to you,"_ Jordi hissed.

Pearce cursed under his breath. He suppressed the display of the error messages. Setup a statusbar at the upper edge of the screen which slowly but steadily filled up as the attacker tried to install a backdoor. He got the installation to cancel, but he couldn't make it stick. He suspected the problem were the hijacked routers, probably Blume already had them set up to allow them access and they left Pearce with only the fairly feeble protection of his own firewall.

From Jordi's end, he heard the sound of gunshots, the thin chattering of the SMG. It sounded like a fight, but Jordi was more than equippd to handle everything. Jordi was good at what he was doing, despite the attitude.

The status bar reported completion and the system turned unresponsive. Pearce could do nothing but watch as the hacker went through his system, but they didn't seem to be interested in taking anything. The CPU spiked, he could hear it, and then the system just overloaded and shut itself down. He beat a fist down on the keyboard in front of him, then reached for his phone before it could be attacked, too. He cut it out of the bank's network brutally and the phone briefly stalled, working through more errors.

For a moment, it looked liked he lost connection to Jordi entirely, but the phone picked back up and reestablished. This one, at least, was temporarily secure from Blume, but Pearce couldn't be sure.

Jordi's voice came on in medias res of what seemed to be a long string of — presumably — colourful expletives. Pearce hadn't known Jordi actually spoke Chinese.

"Shut up and do what I say," Pearce interrupted. "Do you have the drive?"

_"Yes, I have the drive," _Jordi snarled. _"I have also just been attacked by an angry mob. Without pitchforks, but no thanks to you. You were supposed to keep them off my back. What are you doing out there, having tea and biscuits?" _

"I lost access to the bank's system," Pearce said. He tossed the now useless laptop to the backseat and started the car. "I locked the bank down, you'll need to find another way out. Find the manager, he'll get you out."

_"The manager didn't make it to the other side." _

"Fuck… alright, he should have a security key for the fire exits. Or ask Christina if you didn't shoot her, too."

There wasn't any more traffic now then there had been all day in Kinderhook, no one had yet figured out that their bank was being robbed and that a shooting had taken place. Jordi's guns were all equipped with suppressors, the guns wouldn't be loud enough to be heard outside, especially to someone who didn't expect to hear gunfire.

Pearce resisted the urge to press the go full throttle. It wasn't far to bank and he didn't need more attention. With Blume to their elbows in it, he was surprised the cops hadn't started swarming the place yet, but everything was silent, not distant sirens as they came closer, no fleet of police cruisers as they closed down the town.

The question was, could it be good that Blume didn't want the police involved?

"Where are you?" Pearce asked, as he stopped the car, but kept the engine running.

_"Upstairs," _Jordi was breathing a bit hard, audibly moving fast. _"Heading for a fire escape… oh no you don't."_

Through the earpiece, Pearce heard the sound of scuffle, followed by the low chatter of the SMG. He heard it outside the earpiece, too, if just barely. Pearce drove around the corner, where a narrow alley led behind the bank. As he stopped, a body hit the ground, dark-suited, Pearce guessed it was one of the Blume guys. Glancing up, Pearce saw Jordi swing himself out of the window he'd just broken and onto the fire escape.

Jordi got down easily, jumped the rest of the way and made a run for the car. Pearce leaned over and opened the passenger door, letting the car start to roll. The moment Jordi was in, he hit the gas, leaving a trail of smoke and dark smudges from the tyres behind as he accelerated down the street.

* * *

_End of _Class Act – Part 1_

* * *

**Revised on **_19/May/2016_


	31. Class Act - Part 2

**Author's Note: **I somehow managed to spell Jordi as Jodi for large portions of this and didn't really notice, but Jordi transcends such trivial matters anyway.

So, 14 stories in**, **I basically pull a signature weapon out of my arse. I love the auto-6, I just _never use it_ in game and I completely forgot it was there. BUT I can pull a decent in-universe explanation out of my arse, too! Just watch me: Aiden's gang background. A semi-automatic _red _handgun is easily some kind of status symbol, especially because the thing is expensive and packs quite a punch. In terms of character development, it actually makes sense for him to _start out_ using the showier weapon, but abandon it later in favour of silence and efficiency (and holy shit, is that silenced pistol efficient…) On the other hand, I barely mention the names of the weapons anyone is using anyway. But in terms of coolness, the auto-6 is unbeatable in my book.

The M4 carbine is a real-life gun that doesn't appear in-game. The Wildfire is it's closest approximation (but the M4 has a greater range).

* * *

**Class Act – Part 2**

* * *

Sludge framed the streets and Pearce's driving was less precise than it would otherwise be. The car was carried further out in the corners, took an additional moment before it steadied itself and he could accelerate more.

"You fucked up," Jordi stated. He leaned forward and pulled the laptop away from under him, threw it to the floor and had no qualms in stepping down on it when he ran out of space to put his feet. He gave the side of Pearce's face a hard stare.

Kinderhook's main street wound in gentle curves out of the town and into an airy forest. They passed a handful of cars, but Pearce didn't let them slow them down. He simply swerved to the other lane and overtook them easily, too fast for the thin trickle of oncoming traffic to be a concern.

"Do you have the drive?" Pearce asked without much inflection.

"Yes, I have the drive," Jordi said. "But I'm not sure you deserve it. Hanging me out to dry like that? Bad style."

"You're Jordi Chin, aren't you?" Pearce said, gaze still fixed on the road. "Two Blume security guys shouldn't give you any trouble."

"Yeah, no, that's not the point," Jordi insisted. He drummed his fingers on the inside of the car door, low, rhythmic thuds beating through the variable humming of the engine, the hiss of the wind and the sound of wet snow being beaten out of the way by the tyres.

"When your client called," Pearce said, visibly forcing himself to remain calm. "Blume already knew something was going down."

Jordi was silent for a thoughtful moment. "So the whole thing was already off by the time it really started?"

"That drive…" Pearce started.

"So _that's _it. I get it now," Jordi interrupted, a crystalline cheerfulness cutting back into his tone. "You wanted the drive."

"I need whatever's on that thing," Pearce said, glanced at Jordi. "I know the job's shot to hell. I'll compensate you."

Jordi was still drumming with two fingers against the car and he kept going for another full minute. Then he suddenly stopped and resettled himself. He shifted the bag with the guns around between his feet, markedly annoyed by it.

Jordi said, "Now that phone thing you did…"

"Habit," Pearce said, if he was trying to sound apologetic, it wasn't working. "I'm never sure if you're really on my side."

"Yeah, well, fool me once," Jordi growled. He fingered his phone from his pocket and held it in front of him, turned it upside down and let it hang between his fingers as if he contemplated throwing it out the window.

Instead, he merely tossed it in the air, caught it and put it away.

"Blume hacked in and shut me down," Pearce explained.

Jordi only shrugged. "Nevermind," he said. "You just owe me a heist now. Gonna collect on that one, but probably not in Kinderhook. Small town charm doesn't really do it for me. But I got this thing lined up, a nice handful of ice coming into the country…"

Pearce made a low sound in his throat, either a sigh or the beginning of some kind of objections. Before it got any further, however, a phone rang and filled the car with the melody of Dancing Queen, slightly muffled but distinctive enough.

Pearce glanced at Jordi, brows pulled up high while Jordi's face seemed oddly lax, still focussed away from Pearce. He lifted a schoolmasterly finger toward him and said, "_That_ is _certainly _very embarrassing_. _Something you didn't tell me, Pearce?"

But the line already began to falter towards the end when the sudden realisation crashed around them both.

"The Blume phone," they said almost at the same time.

Jordi pulled himself straight in his seat, leaned down and fished in the bag for the phone, pulled it free before Pearce had even finished saying, "Take the battery out."

Jordi was making short work of the phone. "Would you look at that," he said, reading the display before he flipped it over in his hand. "Thanks '_Bae'_ for calling to warn us."

He pulled open and removed the battery and SIM card. Dancing Queen came to an abrupt, though welcome end.

"They know where we are," Jordi stated casually, threw the pieces of the phone back into the bag.

"They know where we are," Pearce confirmed in the same tone.

He stepped on the gas, despite the risk on the slippery road and the red car shot down the nearly empty road that stretched on in front of them as they left Kinderhook further and further behind. Jordi fixed on the mirror on his side, nudged the bag with one foot and briefly eyed the guns there, as if gauging how quickly he could get at them.

The noise of police sirens was still suspiciously absent and with Blume in the picture, switching on a phone was not a good idea. Pearce had a couple of surprising ready on his, but judging by the ease with which they had torn through his laptops, he doubted he'd buy them much time.

"Not to ruin your run or anything," Jordi said. "But do you even know where you're going?"

Pearce didn't answer immediately, he flexed his hands on the wheel in a rare show of agitation, then said, "There's a campground about fifteen miles down the road and through a bit of forest. It's probably empty now."

"Always wanted to have my Bolivian army ending in an abandoned campground outside _Kinderhook,"_ Jordi said. "Thanks for making it happen for me. There's a black helicopter behind us."

Pearce glanced in the rear-view mirror, but he only caught a shadow as the helicopter gained height and followed them at a careful distance.

The road swerved the left in a gentle curve, not harsh enough for Pearce to slow down much. It followed the outline of the forest and up a slight slope, keeping out of sight whatever was beyond.

"Don't be a drama queen," Pearce said. "I can't shake them on a straight road at the ass end of nowhere. We'll have to fight it out. Don't tell me you don't like it."

Jordi chuckled darkly. "I like _my_ odds to be in _my_ favour," he pointed out. "But I'll take my excitement where I get it. By the way, that's really nice stealth tech they've got installed. Do you think there's a market if I steal it?"

"Probably," he answered, but hefted his gaze back on the road as he accelerated some more, though the car was becoming slightly unstable at this speed. "Or you blackmail them for _not _selling it. Could be more lucrative."

Jordi gave him a long look. "Yes, but that'd be an ongoing hassle, taking up my time while I could already be doing something else. You think too complicated, my friend, that's your problem."

Jordi pulled out the SMG and opened the window. Only then the noise of the helicopter became audible over the roaring of the car and the wet splattering of sludge on the road. Even then it was only a distant humming, hovering over the landscape and keeping pace with them easily.

Jordi screwed off the suppressor, tossed it to the ground, stared at the gun as if he could make transform into a sniper rifle by sheer force of will. The helicopter was out of range for the SMG, even if Pearce slowed down abruptly and before the pilot could adjust, it was unlikely the SMG could do enough damage fast enough.

Jordi put the SMG aside, reached in the bag for the pistol he'd used earlier and took off its suppressor, too. He pocketed a magazine, then finally leaned back in his seat, pulled a leg up against the door.

"Blume black ops," he said. "Who'd have thought. It's disappointing no one tried to recruit me for that operation, seems like they get to play with the nice toys."

"Don't sell yourself short," Pearce remarked and Jordi chuckled.

A second helicopter appeared over the forest on their right, following them. They had a narrow time window before Blume's black ops got more than just the helicopters on them. It was hard to say just how mobilised it would get, but it seemed a safe bet Blume _really _didn't want to lose grip of the data on the drive in Pearce's pocket.

An unpaved road led into the forest and Pearce took the corner at full speed, the car getting carried to the edge, the left tyres losing contact with the road for a moment, before he steadied it.

The forest wasn't dense enough to hide a bright red car from above, but the sudden change of direction seemed to have put their pursuers on edge. They had barely passed within the trees when the first shot smashed through the trunk and the car jolted under the impact.

Cursing under his breath, Pearce took a long look into the rear-view mirror, judging the distance from the helicopter and his chances of evasion.

"Not good," Jordi commented. He sat up straight again, hefting the SMG, but he was far from dumb enough to waste ammo on a target that was well out of range.

If Blume had anyone with sense, they'd already have mercenaries closing from the other side as well as trying to catch up on them from Kinderhook. At this point, it was safe to assume the cops were being firmly kept out of it, some cover story about the heist, but Blume had time to spin something around that. Not even gossip moved fast in Kinderhook.

The car had less traction on the muddy road and the trees came uncomfortably close every time Pearce took it around a corner, made it fishtail on the verge of completely losing control in the hope of making them harder to hit. More shot punched through the car, on went down through the roof right between them.

Jordi stared at the hole, arched an eyebrow at it. "I'm okay if we start getting somewhere," he said.

"Stop complaining or I'll turn the whole show around," Pearce sneered, teeth clenched. He tore the wheel around and the car performed a 90 degree turn, forced the car off the road and through the trees. Branches scratched past it and the trees came close on either side, but the canopy was thicker here and the few more random shots missed wildly before the shooter seemed to give up.

They didn't have to go far through the trees. They broke through a low, withered fence and Pearce stopped the car abruptly on the edge of the campground he'd been aiming for all along.

It was a wide clearing, gravel and moss on the ground, some mud and sludge to go with it, but while it looked desolate it wasn't quite as abandoned as Pearce had hoped it to be.

A handful of trailers occupied parts of the open space and there was a group of tents set around a campfire. A row of log cabin further to the right of where they'd stopped also seemed occupied. Pearce counted about a dozen people in the time for the car to slither to a final halt.

It was hard to judge just how much time they had. It wasn't just the helicopters they had to worry about. The rest of cavalry was no doubt already on the way, giving them maybe a handful of minutes to set up and plan.

Jordi pulled the SMG and the pistol as he jumped out of the car and strode forward into the open space. He raised the pistol high over his head and fired twice, the bangs echoing over the clearing, thrown back from the surrounding forest.

"Time to ran away screaming!" he yelled and backed it up with another shot. The people drew back from the red car and the two armed men it had delivered into their midst, confusion rapidly replaced by panic under the unrelenting snaps of the gun. There was _some_ screaming, though most people just turned around and made for the trees. A few reacted slower, drew back only a few steps or had the bright idea to take cover behind their trailers or camping furniture.

Pearce stopped by Jordi's side, pulled his auto-6 from the shoulder holster under his coat. The scratched red metal of the gun formed an odd point of brightness in the otherwise drab, murky winter atmosphere of the forest. The stood out there in the open only for a moment, before the first helicopter appeared over the clearing, held itself still in the air and turned to allow the sniper a better shot.

Pearce and Jordi exchanged one glance, than ran in two different directions and the sniper took just long enough to decide on a target that both men had managed to dodge behind cover. Jordi behind a stack of wood and Pearce pressed his back against a trailer. He slipped to the edge and peered around it, just in time to see several cars swerve to a halt on the dirt road and then spill several dark-clothed and well-armed men out into the campground.

Sudden movement caught his eye and he snapped around, gun drawn and cocked, trigger finger already tensing. A young man stared at him from wide eyes, clearly petrified despite the thick branch in his hand. Above the edge of his mask, Pearce gave him a hard stare, he considered repeating Jordi's warning — he considered just shooting the man, too, fewer people to mess things up — but the man drew back before him, lowered and then dropped the branch. Pearce made a sharp gesture with the gun and the man stammered a quick apology, ran out of courage, turned and dashed away.

A shot hit the ground in front of his feet and Pearce jumped back as far as he could, pushed into the trailer and looked up, at the helicopter hovering just above him. Time to move.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the campground, Jordi crouched behind his pile of wood while splinters were shot loose over his head and rained down on him, getting stuck in his hair. He leaned out of cover, assessed the situation and picked his targets, pumped them full of lead, a round from the SMG close enough to puncture even a bullet-proof vest if they were wearing any.

He'd counted three cars, but there could be more on the way and regardless of what else they were doing, the helicopters needed to go. While the damn things were still in play, the only chance of getting away was walking blindly through the woods for miles and keep their fingers crossed.

Just the thought made Jordi pull a face. Not in this suit, baby. He could replace it easily, but that wasn't the point, it was a matter of principle. Besides, the hiss and snarl of bullets close to his head offered an interesting change of pace. Too few people these days had the balls to take him on and while he did enjoy watching them scamper to safety at the mention of his name, he _so _liked the occasional challenge, too.

He should team up with Pearce more often. The man pretended to be a spoilsport, but he still had a knack for the right kind of trouble.

Jordi hurried along the back of the wood, crouched down and took another shot at an enterprising fixer who had had the bright idea of trying to flank him. He looked over his shoulder, saw Pearce duck out of sight.

"Hey Pearce!" Jordi shouted and Pearce looked up, he had his eyes narrowed in annoyance, clearly visible even at the distance. "Do you know what they say?"

"Know what?"

He leaned over the barrel currently serving as very inadequate cover, aimed, and the auto-6 barked deep and low. Someone gave a wet scream in sudden, gargling pain and then was silent, no doubt bleeding out their life from where the bullets had torn open his throat. That was _another_ way to deal with body armour.

"Takes two to tango!" Jordi grinned brightly. "Always wanted to say that."

Pearce glared at him. "What!?"

Jordi shrugged and leaned a bit further out of cover, pushed himself up until he was ready to leap. He spared a quick glance at the sky, but the two helicopters seemed to have some trouble choreographing themselves over the comparatively small clearing.

He stepped out of cover, SMG and pistol raised high and picking out his targets. In front of him, two trailers formed a narrower stretch of space, enough to give him some protection from the sides and funnel his enemies to him in a near little string, so he could take down one after the other, walking forward.

He kept his eyes on potential cover along the way, just because he was doing this didn't mean he was prepared to do it the stupid way. He had been in the game long enough to have been shot at by any weapon in existence. He'd been shot at by a _longbow _once, though they had been both a bit high at the time. Never _ever _accept a contract on a weed dealer. First, they were practically public benefactors and second, he could be indulging in his own product at the time and anyway, have some odd hobbies.

The thing was, neither Pearce's nor his own weapons were going to do much good against the helicopters, but some of _these _guys, they were equipped with heavier guns. Specifically, he was sure he'd heard a M4 carbine and a 416, either of them would give him a decent shot — literally — at the helicopters. He'd prefer a U100, but he somehow doubted they were taking special orders.

Pearce cursed to himself, but he had the presence of mind to figure out what Jordi wanted him to do. He gave covering fire, took down anyone else Jordi had no chance to see or react to.

"Chopper's coming back around!" Pearce shouted. From the direction of his voice, Pearce was moving around fast, clearly being forced further away from Jordi or expose himself to more gunfire.

One of the men ahead of Jordi seemed to detect a momentary break in the firing as Pearce had to concentrate in some other direction and Jordi's pistol ran out of bullets. The man leaned out of cover, the carbine Jordi had wanted all along at the ready.

Jordi threw himself to the side, made a rather graceless landing on his stomach in the freezing mud. He scrambled back to his feet and took the few more steps he needed to get behind a trailer. A ladder lead up the trailer there and he climbed it quickly. He saw the helicopter, knew he was down to the last few seconds.

He wasn't going to die in a soiled suit, he ran along the top of the trailer, judged the distance and pounced down just behind the man with the Carbine. A shot from the sniper hissed over his head when he jumped, probably even singed some of his hair.

He landed smoothly, though, used the momentum to crush his pistol into the mercenary's neck and when the man went down, Jordi brought the SMG around and shot him in the head from behind. The man slumped on his ruined face.

Jordi snatched the carbine up, turned and made a run for it through a gap between the trailers.

He would have liked to check back with Pearce, but he supposed for as long as there was gunfire _not _aimed at him, Pearce was still holding up his end of the damage. He would have liked someone to keep the mercenaries off his back while he took aim at the helicopters, too, but it wasn't the first time he had to work with a lousy setup.

Ahead of him, the campground was empty. On his right, he saw the tents and the campfire, but neither offered a particularly good vantage point or anything like decent cover. He made for their abandoned getaway car, darting across the open space hopefully fast enough no one saw him throw himself down behind the car.

He leaned his back into the side of the car, took a few deep breaths to steady himself.

The shooting had moved away from him. Without needing any special directions, Pearce had figured out he was the designated distraction and seemed to be doing all hell to keep attention on him. It'd be bad luck if it turned out to be more than he could handle, but Jordi spared him barely a second thought. By the time Pearce went down, these helicopters better were out of commission.

With his breathing slowed down enough, Jordi rolled back up, moved back on the car and set up the carbine on the hood, leaned down so he could aim at the sky and the still circling helicopters. One seemed to flying a wider circle over the woods, perhaps out of fear one of them was trying to sneak away, but the other was doing a good job of riddling a trailer with holes while Pearce darted past in its shadow.

The carbine wasn't setup for long-range firing, equipped with just iron sights and no decent scope, but helicopter was holding still, assisting its sniper in target acquisition of his own.

"Now," Jordi muttered to himself. "Do I shoot the sniper or the pilot?"

At this range, it was more of a rhetorical question, anyway, but he didn't have much margin for error. The moment he opened fire, the mercenaries would remember he was still there and swarm him, Pearce's best efforts be damned.

Jordi leaned into the gun against the inevitable recoil, drew a breath and held it, waited another moment until the muzzle was perfectly steady in his hands. He pulled the trigger, pushed into the recoil to force as much as of the burst to hit its target.

He was too far away to see the details, but he was fairly sure he hit the sniper and the impact threw him back inside the helicopter.

Jordi realigned the carbine and fired again, aiming roughly for the pilot, but he mostly just tore through the front and underside of the helicopter as the machine tried to gain height as quickly as possible, swerving away over the forest and hopefully never to come back for a second beating.

"One down," he announced to an enraptured audience of one. He took the carbine down and rolled behind the car again, just in time as the first shot bit through the metal of the car. He slipped to the back, settled behind the trunk before he peered around it to assess his situation.

By the circle of tents, Pearce briefly tangled with an attacker, tossed him around and into a tent, which collapsed around him. Pearce whipped around after him, followed up with a shot before he ducked away. Bullets rained into the ground where he'd stood just a moment before. The last Jordi saw of him, Pearce was bunkering down behind a pile of tyres, reloading, but Pearce didn't stay long enough to make himself a target.

Jordi spotted three more mercenaries in hiding around the trailers and while he watched, he heard two shot from the auto-6 and there was no answering fire. Either because everyone had gone into hiding, or because there was no one else left.

Jordi pulled up the carbine, took aim quickly and emptied a round into a mercenary's head peeking up above the rails on the side of a trailer.

He heard bark of the auto-6 and relaxed behind the iron sights, watched with some new-found leisure as Pearce straightened away out of cover and took a step forward. Jordi couldn't see Pearce's target, but the way Pearce held himself, the man must be right in front of him and Pearce put the gun to his head, pulled the trigger in his face.

Wasting no more time on admiring someone else's handy-work, Jordi stood up and put the carbine back on the car. He tracked the second helicopter with his gaze, then leaned in behind the iron sights, waited patiently as it drew closer.

He grinned to himself when he deemed the helicopter within range and opened fire. The burst tore through the front of the helicopter, punched through something crucial and he was _fairly _certain he'd hit the pilot this time. Either way, the helicopter swerved to the side sharply and as some minor explosion ripped a hole into the hull on the side. Black smoke oozed from the gap. The helicopter gained height, but it was clearly out of control, leaning this way and that before dipping to the right sharply and going down in a tight arch over the trees and out of sight. It crashed through the trees, marked only by the smoke rising over the forest.

"There's more where that came from," Pearce said from Jordi's side. He pushed the mask from his face, still breathing a little hard.

Jordi tilted his head to the side as he stood up. "And I'm just getting started," he stroked one hand along the carbine.

Pearce seemed unimpressed. He shrugged. "Do what you want."

He walked around the car, pulled open the passenger door and retrieved the bag originally from below the seat. He zipped it closed and slung it over his shoulder, then met Jordi's gaze again.

"I'm taking one of those dirt bikes and get out of here," he said. "Try not to get killed."

Jordi leaned into the side of the car, watching Pearce from narrowing eyes. "That's how it's gonna be?" he asked, smoothed down the front of his suit, ineffectively brushing at the caked mud. "You still owe me," Jordi added, just in case he was being too subtle.

"No, actually, _you _need to figure out who spilled to Blume and caused this mess."

"Hm," Jordi made. He picked a splinter of wood from his hair and snipped it aside. "My dear wayward client has a lot to answer for, not to speak of my pay-check. Or yours, for that matter."

Jordi tapped the side of the carbine thoughtfully. It looked like he was giving it a pat. He looked around the campground, the dead strewn around and the burning helicopter crashed in to the woods not far away. Not bad for half an hour of work, even if it was essentially unpaid work. But maybe Pearce was right. Blume had been throwing quite a bit of heat their way and no doubt they were gearing up for more.

Jordi decided he was a little too old for more mud-wrestling. He was keeping the carbine, though, as a memento. Definitely a better choice than hanging on to his suit.

"Yeah, yeah," Jordi said, waved a hand in the air, dismissing some trivial thought or other. "When I find him… do you want in?"

Pearce hesitated and while he still pondered the offer, a tiny drop of blood ran down the side of his face. He raised a hand and brushed it aside, traced it back up to the side of his head. His fingers came away bloody. He stared at it for a moment, than wiped the blood on the side of his trousers.

"Yeah," he said finally. "I'm in."

* * *

_End of _Class Act – Part 2_


	32. Class Act - Part 3

**Author's Note: **Writing this chapter has taught me that google is somewhat reluctant to tell you how to torture people. If I ever end as the suspect in a crime and they take a look at my browser history, I'm doomed.

I suggest you never get on the naughty list of _both_ of them.

* * *

**Class Act – Part 3**

* * *

Metal scraped on metal as Jordi gave the gun a shove, let it rotate on the table until it skittered unevenly to a halt. He nudged it again and the gun swirled once more. Every-time the little game started again, the man in the centre of the room made a tiny whimpering sound. Jordi suspected it was the kind of sound that started abrading your nerves if you had to listen to it for too long, even if the rest of it all was enjoyable enough. Though, truth be told, he'd had better dates.

As the gun spun, he looked up briefly, arched his brows as he looked the man over. Jordi was a little hard-pressed to figure out what he was whimpering about so badly. Jordi couldn't detect any lasting damage done when Pearce had abducted him, no broken bones from the baton, no seared grazing shots, no telltale knuckle marks on his face… the man had apparently not resisted at all. Depending on your world view, that could make him one of the smart ones, of course, but Jordi's opinion on the man's intelligence wasn't too stellar.

The grimace he pulled along with the whimpering wasn't doing anything for what would otherwise have been an attractive face.

The gun slowed down and before it could stop, Jordi put his hand down on it so the muzzle pointed at the man. He flinched in the rickety folding chair Pearce had pushed him down on before.

They were in a dirty basement room, broken boxes and other debris strewn around in the back, casting bizarre shadows across the cracking concrete walls where mould crawled down in the corners.

"_Gene_ Long," Jordi said, drew out the name like chewing gum. "Good name for porn, I hear you've recently been fired by Blume."

Gene lifted his head a little when Jordi started speaking, then flinched even harder when Pearce stepped out of the shadows and walked around him only to stop somewhere behind him, out of easy sight.

Jordi saw Pearce settle a shoulder into the wall and cross his legs at the ankle, pulling out his phone and flicking through it casually.

Pearce said, "Yes, IT doesn't seem to be his thing."

"What do you want?" Gene asked whispered. If anything, the fact that at least they were speaking to him, seemed to give him some strength back.

"You hired me, remember?" Jordi said, feigning surprise. "You still owe me half a pay-check. And my irate friend there, too."

"But I don't have the money! And it doesn't matter anymore, because Blume…"

"Yes," Jordi interrupted gently. "That's the other thing. You see, hiring me and not paying up is _bad. _Really fucking bad. But…" he took his hand from the gun and wriggled it in the air between them. "_Maybe _I'd have let that slide. Maybe. But almost getting me killed? Ruining one of my best suits? That's very hard not to take personally. And do you know what happens when I take something personally?"

"I didn't do it!" Gene wailed. He rocked forward and his chair complained. "They just _knew_…!"

"Bullshit," Pearce said. "Next time someone sends you a link to a Kesha sex tape, don't click it. I'd have expected something better from a Blume IT engineer, but I suppose you're out of a job for a reason."

Gene's gaze flicked over Jordi as he turned his head, trying to steal a look at Pearce over his shoulder. When Jordi set the gun spinning again, Gene looked back around, eyes darting back and forth in the room in the hopeless attempt to get them both in sight. It was obvious that he couldn't quite decide who of the two of them frightened him more.

"Because of that little slip," Jordi continued. "We know you've send a mail to your boss where you spilled _everything." _

He frowned, this time in genuine puzzlement. "I just don't get what was going on in that head of yours. All you had to do was sit still for a few more hours. I'd have gotten you your flash-drive, you give me my money, I give him his money and everyone walks away happy. Well, maybe except for him," he gestured at Pearce. "He doesn't do happy too well."

The man fidgeted, looked down on the tip of his boots or perhaps studying the rough and dirtied floor under him. He forced himself to look back up, tried to catch Jordi's gaze, but did a poor job of not looking at the spinning gun.

"What do you say?" Pearce asked and at the sandpaper sound of his voice, Gene blinked and pulled his shoulders up as if expecting a blow.

"Fingers? Teeth?" Pearce continued conversationally. "Eyes? Ears? Tongue? Where should we start?"

Gene whimpered quietly, wrapped his arms tighter around him and stared at Jordi from wide eyes. Jordi chuckled to himself.

"So many choices," Jordi commented, picked up the gun and tapped it against his chin, making a show of considering the list of options.

"No no no! Wait!" Gene whined. "I can… I can get you the money! I swear I can!"

He snapped his head around when Pearce's boots made a low scratching sound, but Pearce stepped aside easily, coming at Gene from the other side and Gene yelped in shock when Pearce dropped both hands on his shoulders.

Jordi took the gun down, rested both hands on the edge of the table, rocking back and forth a little.

"That's a nice starting offer," Jordi said. "But it's not the money. Never thought I'd hear myself say that, but you see, that backstabbing part… I can't let that get out to the general public. Word gets get out I've gone all soft on some _little shit pissing all over me," _he shook his head sadly. "The problems just never end." He leaned forward and gave Gene a toothy grin. "I know it's cliché, but I just can't let you get away with this." He looked up and caught Pearce's gaze. "I'd say we start small. Break a finger."

It took Gene a long moment to process the information through his already panic-addled brain. At any rate, he lacked the physical strength and willpower to get out of Pearce's grip. Pearce yanked up Gene's arm, shifted his hold to a finger and snapped it back sharply. The bone grated and strained and finally broke. Shock seemed to hit Gene first, forced him into a split second of silence before the scream forced itself from his throat.

Gene's body started shaking so hard, when Pearce abruptly let him go, Gene knocked over the chair and landed on his side in a messy heap, holding his hand in the air above him as his screaming subsided to high-pitched wailing.

Pearce turned on his heels, took a step forward and reached delicately for the chair and put it up again. Gene tried to slide back and away from Pearce. He turned around and started to crawl. He didn't get very far, because Pearce stepped forward, gripped him at the collar of his jacket and a shoulder, hauled him p and pushed him down on the chair.

Gene struggled weakly, but didn't try to get away. Shivering, he stared at Pearce from frightened animal eyes, with tears running down his face.

Pearce stepped back, however, leaned into the wall again in much the same position he'd had before. He gave Jordi a hard stare and said, "Your turn. I don't think he needs his kneecaps."

Jordi had the perfect vantage point to watch the way Gene _broke. _His expression changed seemingly in slow motion right in front of him. Gene's eyes grew wide and his nose scrunched up, corners of his mouth quivering.

"What do you _want?" _Gene sobbed. "I'll do anything! Just say it!"

"Nothing," Pearce said from behind him. "You have nothing to offer."

Jordi tapped the gun on the metal table, making it ring in the empty basement and for just a second, Gene's took great, hiccuping breaths. A glob of snot slowly dripped from his nose and came to rest on his upper lip.

"Don't lie to the poor man," Jordi said. "He's still got _some _use as a cautionary tale." He frowned. "Of course, not if he gets too disgusting… I was hired to abduct this guy once? He pissed himself and that's _not _a figure of speech, I'm afraid. Completely ruined the leather seats. But it had a happy ending, because I had to get rid of him anyway, and I sunk him _and_ the car."

He shook his head sadly. "You never get that stink out, but I liked that car."

"Kneecaps, Jordi," Pearce reminded him, sounded both impatient and bored.

"Both of them?" Jordi asked and jumped to his feet. Gene lurched back, but Pearce took a quick step forward and caught the chair before it could topple over.

"I mean I get one finger and you want _both _kneecaps?"

"It's proportional to how much you talk."

Jordi shrugged and dropped the argument. He stepped forward and because Pearce was still holding the back of the chair, Gene couldn't draw back further. He was still holding the wounded hand out away from him, but he lifted his other arm in a feeble attempt to ward off Jordi, trying to scramble away to the side.

Pearce put a hand to his shoulder, keeping him pinned for Jordi.

Jordi leaned over Gene, made eye contact with him as he pressed the gun to his knee. He flicked the safety off, deliberately and loud enough Gene could hear it and the sobbing stuttered as he had no choice but to stare back at Jordi's face and the lopsided smile on his face when he pulled the trigger.

The echo of the shot beat around the empty room, loud enough to be deafening and with the way Gene was howling, Jordi almost wished it had.

#

Pearce stepped out on the driveway, put his head back and breathed deeply. The neighbourhood around him was in silence, the houses on both sides were just as empty as this one, fallen into disrepair and even the gangs seemed absent tonight.

Behind him, Jordi let the garage door drop. In the darkness, Pearce's expression was inscrutable when he glanced back at Jordi and then away again.

"Doesn't it make you sick?" Pearce asked, but his voice was so low, he might as well be talking to himself.

Jordi took a few swaggering steps forward until he was standing right beside Pearce. "No, not really."

"Don't you think it should?"

Jordi arched his brows and gave Pearce a look of sheer scepticism. "Are we having a heart to heart here? Because that's absolutely not something I do."

He waved with his hand, back at the garage, the abandoned house it belonged to and the unconscious man inside they had made an example of.

"I get it," Jordi said. "You want to 'redeem' yourself." He air drew little quotation marks into the air and the word sounded like something dirty from his mouth. "I think you should take a long look at what you're good at before you go on with it, but that's entirely your own loss. If you ask me, which you _did_ just now… here's a piece of my mind. The world," he drew a circle with his hand, then stabbed a hole in it. "Is full of _losers_. And it falls to men like me to make use of it while it lasts, milk as much fun and money out of it before it goes up in shit and flames. That jerk back there? No matter how you look at it, he was asking for it. You don't hire a fixer — and let me tell you, you don't hire a fixer with _my _going rate — and then try to backstab him and you especially don't do it in such a harebrained way, that's just adding insult to injury."

He took another step forward, turned around until he faced Pearce, narrowed his eyes at him. "And to answer your original question: No, it shouldn't. In fact, I think we made the world just a _tiny_ little bit more fair tonight."

He measured about half an inch between his forefinger and his thumb, then used the hand to dismiss his own account, already bored with it. "Justice for everyone. Case closed."

When Pearce didn't respond, Jordi lifted a hand and for a moment it look like he was about to give Pearce a pat on the back. Instead, he dropped his hand again.

"With that out of the way," he said casually. "I just thought I'd tell you. I've started this new safety measure, where I only bring burner phones to each of our rendezvous. In case you think about getting clever while I'm not looking."

Pearce turned his head, a little more sharply than was normal, but Jordi ignored it and the look that accompanied it. Jordi stepped past him, gave a careless wave over his shoulder. "I'm done here," he said. "You got a paying job for me, get in touch."

He walked to his car, tossed the keys in his head as he walked around it. He got in and drove off to the roaring of the engine, too loud for the neighbourhood and Pearce still heard him when he was two streets away.

Pearce stood perfectly still until the roaring of Jordi's car had faded. Without looking at the house, he walked down the driveway and across the street, where his own car was parked.

He pulled out Gene's phone and dialled.

_"911, what's your emergency?"_

"Send an ambulance to 7751 Peoria Avenue, some guy has been shot and beaten up in the basement."

_"Please…"_

He didn't wait, he only dropped the phone on the street without disconnecting the call. He gave the house a quick glance as he got into his car, but he didn't linger.

He drove off into the night and was gone long before ctOS had been alerted to the call and sent the ambulance on its way. He had one more thing to do, however.

* * *

**To:** Christina Sullivan

**From: **(blocked)

**Message:** I'm sorry for what happened in the bank, but I'm even more sorry for what happens to you outside the bank everyday. It isn't my job to tell you how to lead your life, but perhaps the moment of shock helped wake you up. It doesn't have to be like that. There's a link in the attachment where they'll actually help you.

**Attachment:** J3msPTs3r8

* * *

_End of _Class Act_

* * *

**Reference:**

Although a vague connection Jordi's "milk as much fun and money out of it before it goes up in shit and flames" was inspired by: "Conceive more and subtler ways of getting the better of a sniggering world." Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett

* * *

****Closing Note:**** More on Aiden the hypocrit! One very early thing you hear Aiden say in the game is how torture wasn't going to work on Maurice and Aiden's just extremely casual about the possibility of it. It doesn't seem like it's occured to him that _torture _isn't the morally sound thing to do. AND it's a factor that's present _regardless _of how the player influences Aiden's behaviour (and personality.)


	33. Two Little Hitlers

**Author's Note: **"Two Little Hitlers" by Elvis Costello is the perfect commentary on Aiden's and Damien's relationship, just listen. It's also been one of my favourite songs for a long time.

* * *

[summary: aiden and damien in the twilight of their partnership, just before the merlaut.]

[takes place in september 2012]

**_Two Little Hitlers**

* * *

Damien buried his hand in the girl's hair and yanked her body into the wall. She shrieked and tried to kick at him, but she wasn't seeing so well, hair in her face and she'd been meeting that wall twice already. She clawed at him with her hands, digging her long, manicured nails into his arms, chest and scratching the side of his neck.

Damien didn't want to even _consider _what Aiden would say if he got himself beaten by nineteen year old girl, even if she seemed to have some idea of what she was doing.

She tried to knee him in the groin, but Damien didn't relinquish his grip on her hair and used the moment to finally pull her off balance. She fell like a stone on her own plush carpet and Damien followed her down. He managed to turn her around, straddle her back. He used his grip in her hair to knock her head in the floor, once, but he wasn't sure how effective it was, the carpet was too soft and it only made her struggle harder, shouting a long string of expletives and kicking her legs uselessly.

She didn't stop struggling as Damien caught both her hands and wrenched them back. He pushed a knee over her wrists and fumbled the zip-ties from his back pocket. She winced in pain as he pulled them too tight, but finally seemed to calm down a bit, lying still under him.

Breathing hard, Damien pulled himself to his feet and she kicked at him, but missed by a mile.

"Well," Damien said, pulled his shirt straight. "Do you want a cigarette? Because I really want a cigarette."

The girl shuffled around like a stranded fish until she could roll to her side. She tossed her head back to clear some of the hair from her face and stare at him through the curtain of messed-up red-dyed strands.

"Do you even know who I am, you fucker?" she snarled.

"I know you're the little bitch who hacked into my computer and thought I wouldn't notice," Damien said. "And you blew my bookmaker scam. I liked that one, it was perfect."

"My parents are rich!" she yelled.

Damien arched his brows, picked an armchair and let himself drop into it, hanging one leg over the side as he took in the — now slightly trashed — apartment around him. An airy skyscraper loft, up high enough to have a nice view through the tall windows, modern furniture and an oversized television mounted on a faux-brick wall.

"I know," he said. "Do you think I could turn it into a kidnapping? Make some of that money back you lost me?"

"They'll hire a killer to take you out!"

"What? Stock brokers are into contract kills now?" Damien chuckled and then shook his head sadly. "For a hacker, you have an amazing digital footprint. How do you think I found you? I got a question for you… where do you have the copy of my hard-drive?"

"Fuck you, you creep!"

"You weren't even supposed to be here," Damien added. He rubbed a hand over the scratch marks and frowned. "Since you _are_, you'd better be useful."

She stamped with one foot on the floor in anger, than heaved herself into a sitting position. She shook her head again, got some more hair from her face to reveal an angry glare.

"Fuck you," she said. "Pretty soon, my boyfriend will come home and you'd better hope you're gone by then."

Damien tilted his head towards the hallway when he heard a noise at the front door and a moment later Aiden stepped into the living room.

"You're late," Damien said.

Aiden took a moment to look around the room before he fixed on Damien. "I thought I let you clean up your own mess for a change," he said. He arched a brow at the girl. "Tough fight?" he asked with a slight smirk.

"I've been thinking of keeping her number," Damien said. "For when she's ten years older."

"Pervert," the girl hissed.

"I agree," Aiden said.

Damien looked from Aiden to the girl and back, then shrugged. "You _both _need to learn how to take a joke."

"Do you have the backup?" Aiden asked. He stepped across the room to the kitchen bar counter, leaned against it and crossed his arms over his chest.

"We were getting to that," Damien said.

The girl turned a baleful eye on Aiden. "Tell your asshole friend he can shove the backup up his ass because I won't tell him where it is! I'm sending both you jerks to prison with it!"

Aiden looked back at her for a moment, almost as if he contemplated her actual threat value. Then he bent her a smirk, "Sometimes I love working with amateurs, they make so many mistakes."

The girl blinked, taken aback and clearly unsure what she should say to that, but she caught herself almost immediately. She sat up a little straighter, tossed her head back and bared her teeth. "Fuck you both! I'm not saying another word!"

Damien looked at Aiden who bore his scrutiny in silence, then he frowned. "What? You want me to beat up on a teenager? You started it, you can finish it."

Damien caught the girl flinch from the corner of his eye and thought it was a good start. "No," he pulled up his nose. "Why would you think that? How about some cold reading? You've already successfully figured out she's a teen. How many hiding places can she even have?"

"Teenagers are psychopaths," Aiden said.

"I'm sure you were."

Aiden took a breath and seemed like he was about to say something else, instead he pushed himself away from the counter.

"It's probably somewhere in her bedroom," he said as he left the room. Through the open door, Damien could make out the edge of low, asian style bed. He watched Aiden's shadow move and after another moment, he heard the boot chime of a computer.

The girl made an inarticulate noise in her throat, something between frustration and defeat, Damien thought. At least she had stopped with her ridiculous threats.

Damien looked back at her, "I wasn't kidding, by the way," he said. "I do want a smoke. You got some? Cigarettes? Weed maybe? I deserve a relapse."

She only glared in response. Kids these days, no sense for self-destructive fun anymore, always hanging out in front of their computers and smart-phones, as if you couldn't do _both. _

From the bedroom, it sounded like Aiden was going through drawers and shelves at a rapid pace, some things thudded to the floor heavily and once Damien saw a pillow fly past the door. A little while later, there was another boot chime and Aiden walked back into the living room with a tablet in his hand and a closed laptop under his arm.

"We know the stuff isn't on her normal rig," Aiden said. "And the copy's too big for a phone."

He looked at the girl. "You always keep your tablet with your underwear?"

"You're just another creep," the girl hissed, but she seemed to be running out of steam.

"Is there another copy?" Aiden asked.

She glared at him and bit her lip, keeping herself silent.

Aiden handed off the tablet and the laptop to Damien, then stalked to the girl and crouched down. Damien saw her legs twitch in indecision, not sure if she wanted to kick at him or not. Aiden saw it, too, but didn't seem bothered. The girl kept still.

"You made another copy?" he asked again.

"No," she finally said, voice tipping into a whine. "No, I didn't. I was just fooling around. Your friend's security setup looked like a challenge. I thought… what's he hiding behind that?"

"Yeah, now you know," Aiden said. "Don't try it again, sooner or later, you'd find some real sharks."

"Life lessons!" Damien announced cheerfully. "Brought to you live and free of charge by…"

"The guy whose name you shouldn't be shouting around," Aiden interrupted.

"… Grouchy Smurf."

"And I wouldn't classify it as free."

Aiden got up and Damien just about saw the last hint of a smile on his face, though he'd wiped it away by the time he'd come around fully.

Damien lowered the tablet. "No indication she's made another copy," he said. "Not on first look."

He looked past Aiden at the girl, "If there's more, you'd better tell me now, or we'll be back."

"No," she said, deflating despite her best efforts. "There's nothing. Just piss off!"

"Alright," Aiden said. "Let's go."

Damien swung his leg from the armrest and levered himself up smoothly, stowing both the tablet and the laptop in the canvas bag he'd dropped, when the girl had surprised him earlier.

Just then, something scraped on the front door, freezing both Aiden and Damien in mid-movement. Another scratch and the door was pushed opened. Aiden hurried forward and pressed his back against the wall by the door. Damien straightened up, bag still in his hand.

"Hey Liz! I brought pizza!" a male voice called.

The realisation washed through the room, hit Damien and the girl almost at the same time. He dropped the bag and leaped for her without thinking.

"Brad!" she screamed on top of her lungs. "HELP! Bra-_hnnn-nn_…!"

Then Damien was on her and slapped his hand over her mouth as she picked her struggles up again.

Almost the same instant, Brad came through the door in a rush, pizza boxes still in his hand. Too fast and too careless. Aiden tripped him and punched a fist in his face as the young man stumbled forward, dropping the pizza as he buckled.

Brad didn't go down, though. He managed to balance himself and draw back through the doorway for a momentary respite and a chance to gather himself.

Aiden kicked the pizza aside and followed him, rushed him into the opposite wall and out of Damien's sight. Things shattered and broke in the hallway, the heavy sound of a body hitting a wall, the door. Someone grunted in pain and Damien wasn't entirely sure it was the other guy.

He released the girl's mouth. No point in keeping her quiet now and the good thing about these expensive places was their superior insulation. Wouldn't want your neighbour's noises to intrude on your privacy, would you?

Aiden and Brad appeared again, arms locked in some kind of mutually failing chokehold. Aiden pivoted them around, pushed Brad into the doorway hard enough to make the other's head bounce off the beam. But rather than being down, Brad actually seemed to _use _the momentum, snapped his head forward sharply. Aiden staggered under the head-butt, his grip on Brad loosened. Rather than try to hold on, Aiden let go of him, ducked away under his grip and pushed through into the living room. He twisted around, pulled the baton from its holster on his belt and extended it with a swing of his arm.

Damien hastily scrambled out of the way, close to the bedroom door to avoid any collateral damage, but he wasn't feeling too good about this. Through the years, he'd come to take Aiden's fighting skills more or less for granted. The man was a good shot, good with the baton, good with his fists. Damien had seen him hard-pressed a few times, but only when he was badly outnumbered, never just against _one _guy, who was unarmed and unprepared on top of it.

Aiden lost the baton to a roundhouse kick, but he caught the leg before Brad could take it out of reach, twisted it against the other and brought him down. But Brad didn't stay down, he just bounced back like nothing had happened.

The girl had started cheering her boyfriend on, screaming encouragement at him, interspersed by random insults for Aiden or Damien.

"Shit," Damien muttered, watching Aiden and Brad inadvertedly trash the place. "Hey, Grouchy!" he called. "Stop playing around!"

But he wasn't entirely sure Aiden really was playing around, even if he still had time to snarl at Damien.

A kick to the knee made Brad buckle momentarily and Aiden used the moment to smash his face into the counter top, once, then twice before Brad somehow freed himself. He scrambled for Aiden's gun. Damien didn't know if he hadn't seen it before, or if he'd tried and failed to get at it. Aiden hacked down with his elbow and twisted away, jolting the gun from Brad's gun before he could get a good grip on it.

Aiden gave the gun a kicked so it skittered over the floor and out of easy reach for either of them.

Brad used the moment to pounce again, sling and arm around Aiden's throat from behind and pull so tight Damien could see the muscles strain along his arm. They wavered back and forth, Brad trying to trip Aiden while Aiden struggled in the hold and fighting to stay up. The crashed into the side of the couch, slipped aside and tore a potted palm-tree down over them.

Behind the couch, Damien couldn't see much more than a tangle of legs and hear some more grunting, an angry growl he thought was probably Aiden.

"Shit," Damien said again. He stepped forward and picked up the gun, took off the safety as he round the couch.

Brad had landed on top and was capitalising on it, fingers wrapped around Aiden's throat, who didn't seem to be doing much against it anymore.

Damien considered shooting Brad, but he wasn't sure he wanted to deal with that particular fallout. He also wasn't quite sure he was okay with hitting Aiden. Instead, he lifted the gun and fired into the ceiling. The automatic rapped loudly and at least the girl's constant yammering was coming to an abrupt halt.

Small puffs of concrete dust and tiny chunks of it rained down on Damien.

If nothing else, the shot had startled Brad and Aiden used the chance. He thrusted the flat of his hand against the underside of Brad's jaw and came up the moment Brad's fingers were loose on his throat. Aiden slammed his elbow into the side of Brad's face and with the same movement, reversed their positions, except he'd managed to lock one of Brad's arms under him.

The young man seemed a little dazed, his free hand scrambled for a handhold along Aiden's arm, pulling awkwardly on his collar, but before he could establish a real hold, Aiden caught his wrist and held. Damien saw the bright flare of Aiden's teeth, pulled into a snarl and flinched almost before Aiden yanked on the young man's wrist so hard ot snapped, ugly crunching sound of breaking bone.

Brad howled in pain, then went completely limp under Aiden.

"Well, that was… new," Damien commented.

Breathing hard, Aiden flexed his neck, ran a finger along his collar and up traced the marks already forming on his throat. Brad whimpered and from across the room, the girl was screaming.

"What's going on? What the fuck are you doing! Leave him alone!"

Damien turned on his heel, the gun still in his hand. He tapped the muzzle against his chin. "The sharks my partner warned you about?" he asked. "That's actually us."

"Oh, shut up," Aiden growled roughly. He climbed off Brad and stood up, gaze fixed on Damien before it moved on to the gun.

"That's no toy," he added, reached for the gun. His face was flushed from lack of air, eyes narrowed dangerously.

"It's more accurate to say, it's _your _toy," Damien said, as he gave up the weapon casually. "Have fun playing."

Aiden made no answer, he holstered the gun and went to retrieve the baton.

Brad was still whimpering, curled on his side and attempted to get up. Damien took a few steps away from him, just in case the man was determined enough to still try anything.

Aiden was still holding the baton, flexing his fingers around it and looking back towards Brad. Personally, Damien wouldn't exactly mind if Aiden gave in to that base instinct he had right now and went back to break all other bones in Brad's body.

Aiden folded the baton in his hand and put it away, with what seemed to be tense reluctance.

Standing in the centre of the carnage, Aiden looked back at Damien and said, "Well done."

"Wait," Damien drew out the word. "You think its my fault."

"You let a child hack your computer, then you let her ruin the bookmaker scam, she gets to make a copy of your hard-drive. A drive so full of incriminating files we'd both go to jail for the rest of our lives. And then you completely screw up a simple break-in. Of course it's your fault."

The girl made a noise and Aiden whirled around.

"I'll not try again," she said. "I swear. What's with Brad?"

"He'd better hope he's left-handed," Aiden said darkly. He tilted his head at her. "Let's get it out of the way quickly. Are you going to call the cops?"

She hesitated, then shook her head rapidly. "No… my parents would kill _me. _Not you."

"Good, tell the paramedics you had a household accident." He pushed his head forward a little. "If you change your mind about the cops, I'll finish you both off. Don't think I wouldn't know."

He stepped forward and picked up Damien's bag, slung it over his shoulder.

"I'm done here," he stated, gave Damien a last glance, but didn't stay or say another word before he left.

In the silence, Damien found Brad's whimpering particularly aggravating. He gave him a shove with his boot and Brad rolled to his side, muttering a curse, but he made no attempt to go after Damien.

Damien tugged his hands away into the pockets of his trousers, watched the girl until she looked back at him.

"Are you _sure _you don't have anything to smoke?"

* * *

Damien sat on a park bench in the sun. Late August had unexpectedly blessed the city with warm temperatures and lured the people back outside who had already settled for the rain and wind of autumn. A few children were running around and screaming just behind him, somewhat too close for comfort and their happy screeches cut through his concentration every so often.

Another man might be tempted to just kick back and enjoy the peace while it lasted, but _other _men were dumb-fucks at the best of days and Damien didn't like being told by text when and where he was supposed to be, especially after his partner had given him the silent treatment for over a week.

Still, the sun felt nice on his face, beating colourful swirls through his eyelids when he leaned his head back and closed his eyes, letting his thoughts drift.

He was torn from his revery not much later, when a shadow passed over him and it got cold very briefly while the sun was blocked out. He snapped his eyes open, then narrowed them when the glare suddenly returned.

Aiden had walked past, stopped by his side and held a cup of coffee out in front of Damien's face. He carried his coat folded over an arm, a second cup in his other hand.

"Oh, it's a date," Damien remarked, reaching for the coffee. "You should've said and I'd have worn a tie."

"It's coffee," Aiden said, climbed on the bench to sit on its back, draped his coat over the side and took a sip from his own cup.

Damien used the coffee to steal a lengthy look at his partner, trying to figure out if he was still angry or whether he could be reasoned with like an adult. With Aiden, you could never be quite sure if he had regressed to his gang state or not, especially when angry. A week had been enough to let the bruises on his face fade, but there were still noticeable marks on his throat, visible only because he had zipped his sweater down in the warmth.

"I've been thinking," Aiden said before the silence had managed to stretch to uncomfortable lengths.

He paused as if he expected Damien to say something, but Damien just waited. He was curious what ideas Aiden had been hatching on his own and _maybe _he did feel a little bit guilty over that last incident.

"There's got to be a cleaner way to do this…" Aiden continued. "All that violence can backfire. Stealing from criminals is a good idea, but they take care of their own problems. At least cops got all that red tape to stumble over, a paper they've got to get signed before they can shoot you in the head. Sounds like a lot of wriggle to me."

"One day, when you're old enough, I'm going to sit you down and give you The Talk about police violence," Damien said with a casual grin crossing over his face like clouds before the sun.

"I know everything about police violence," Aiden said, somewhat irritably. "You and me, the cops don't look at us and see criminals. Middle-aged white men don't get gunned down in the street or beaten up in an interrogation room when they ask for a lawyer."

He glanced down at Damien and added, "Nor elderly white men."

Damien let it pass and drank, focussing on the bitter pitch-black liquid as it ran down his throat. He put the cup down. "You know it's so sweet that you remember how I like my coffee," he pointed out. He saw Aiden only from the corner of his eyes and couldn't be sure of his expression, something vaguely impatient, probably, because that's what Aiden looked like most times these days.

"I cleaned up the bookmaker scam," Damien said. "Not a trace left. And the girl's been keeping quiet, too. I don't think there'll be any more nasty surprises from her direction. It's almost a pity, she's had talent."

Aiden said nothing, he drank. They both drank and the silence stretched heavily again in the sunlight and the contrast of the happily playing children. Somewhere not far away, someone started playing a saxophone.

"What have you been thinking about?" Damien asked finally.

Aiden leaned forward until he could catch Damien's gaze, then dragged it along over the lush green meadow and past some modern art sculpture. Aiden tipped his cup toward the tall building there.

"The Merlaut hotel," he said. "Classy place. More money walking in and out in a week than we make in a year. And did you know the Merlaut recently digitalised its administration with some help from Blume?" He made a small sweeping gesture with the coffee. "Everything on one network. They have an in-house app for their guests. They can order room service or switch the channel on the television, open and close the blinds, that sort of thing, all through their phone or tablet."

"Still not seeing the big picture here," Damien said, but it was already taking shape in his head. He thought he had read a news piece on it a few weeks ago, but he'd had his fingers in too many other things at the time to pursue the idea.

"We get in the Merlaut's network, we get into everyone's phone," Aiden explained with a hint of misgiving. He leaned back and folded his free hand over the back of the bench he was sitting on and watched the hotel. "They even pay their bills through their phones."

"Not bad," Damien nodded to himself. "Considering that you had to think of all that yourself."

"What I think," Aiden said sharply. "Is that if we get in the Merlaut's system, we can clean out dozens, or hundreds, of accounts in one go. People who frequent that place, they won't even notice if a few thousand bucks extra have gone missing somewhere. Victimless crime, basically."

He tugged on his collar, in case Damien had already forgotten about that mishap.

"I'm not so sure. The thing about rich people is, they're _greedy. _And they have a lot of pull," Damien pointed out. "Cops will be all over us."

"We just have to work cleanly," Aiden said. "Get in, get out." He lifted himself up, then slid down to sit on the bench by Damien's side. "No more fuckups. You're well over your yearly quota already."

"There's a quota now? Says the guy who got beaten up by my little girl's little boyfriend," Damien stopped himself and took another sip from the coffee. "Let's agree it was a mutual fuck-up."

Damien looked at his partner from the side. He didn't expect to get that admission, but Aiden actually laughed.

"Alright, I'll bite," Damien said. "What _else_ have you got?"

"The Merlaut has a long list of job vacancies, especially for IT people. So, I applied and I got an interview tomorrow. All I have to do now is get them to plug in a flash-drive. Won't be hard in the interview."

Even in profile, Damien could see the rare grin as it broke across Aiden's face when he added, "I get a trojan in, get into their network and we can reap the rewards."

He turned his head at Damien, arched his brows questioningly. "It's a two-man job. Are you in or not?"

* * *

_End of _Two Little Hitlers_

* * *

**Author's Note: **The girl was originally supposed to be much younger, but I've managed to creep myself out with the innuendos and aged her up a bit to lessen the blow.

I definitely need some new kick to keep writing more. I still got a few ideas but... it's sort of all washed out now. I want a new story DLC! Something _big! _Please? What do I have to do to get it?

* * *

**Revised **on 03/May/2016


	34. Me and My Shadow

_Idea sparked after a conversation with Cyclopz! Thanks for that!_

* * *

[summary: aiden takes the night off to relax.]

[takes place some time after the main game]

**_Me and My Shadow**

* * *

His Chicago is deserted around him, a silence so absolute it presses down on him and he feels like pushing through water as he sprints across the street and ducks behind the wreckage of a car. The shadow is only moderately comforting, not deep enough to hide in, but enough to trip him up every so often with the illusion of safety.

A streak of light cuts across the street on the other side of the car, stops, then turns and hesitates. The light streams past the car on either side like liquid ice. He's out of ammo, nearly out of grenades, out of _everything _but his own hands and the weight of the extended baton in it. It's moments like this when he realises how deep his muscle memory runs. The twitch for his phone is reflexive, but nearly useless right now. There's nothing here for him to hack, the generator is still half a block down the road and he's already mapped his way there and he knows he'll need more cover than he'll get.

The light swerves to the side, dips one side of the car back into darkness and he shuffles toward it, only to freeze when another cone of light falls on him, strong enough to tear right through the feeble layer of leather and cloth on his back.

There's a pause and he _hates _that tiny moment, it's just long enough to rip nerves to shreds and make his heart-rate jump, but it's never _enough _to do anything about it, not hemmed in as he is from two sides and it's too far to any other cover.

_"Violation detected!" _

The ice of the searchlight turns a bloody red as he moves, instinctively trying to get out of the searing beam before it saps him of his strength. He resists the urge to bolt and run for the shadows and the meagre safety they promise, but he is still somewhat surprised he even _has _a flight instinct anymore. Perhaps it's why he keeps playing, just to see sides of himself he's not facing out in the real world.

The pain isn't real, anyway, but telling himself doesn't make it any less of an effort to push to his feet and launch himself at the enemy. The light blinds him and he misjudges the distance. The robots just _seem _slow and simple, but they are tuned in to him, they follow in some gravitational pull. A human enemy, he could have flanked, ducked past him and come up behind. It's harder to do this time, but it's no reason to stop, he trips the machine and it buys him a respite to sling the arm around its neck and yank the baton back, trip it and make it fall. It gargles and chokes, struggles in his grip and Aiden's never sure if he feels metal or flesh under his fingers when it happens.

The others are on him, the one from the car and two — no, three — others have diverged from their paths to surround him. He dives through the gap between them, lands hard on the cracked concrete and rolls back to his feet with the same motion. The robots turn after him, their metallic voices beating against him and the brutal light. He tosses his last EMP grenade in their centre and detonates it.

His knees feel weak and his vision is blurred, but he wastes no time. Already he sees the flashes around him, as new enemies are summoned into his part of the grid. They always appear far enough away to fool someone less perceptive into believing it's random. Aiden knows better, of course. He keeps going as his strength slowly crawls back into his limbs. His mind clears with each step he takes.

The generator beam reaches into the murky sky ahead, cutting higher than the spires of darkened skyscrapers.

Ahead of him, several cars are strewn around, but he keeps to the right, watches his enemies as they pick their way and change direction to begin to hem in again, one deceptive step at a time. It's not their speed that bothers him, its the certainty. Two from behind, and one to cut off the street ahead.

He abandons his beeline for the generator. Stoked with weapons and ammo, he could have pushed through, but like this, he's rendered too vulnerable. He draws back into an alleyway. It's passingly familiar, it's _his _Chicago after all, even in this desolate mirror version of it.

He has some breathing space as he hurries down the alley, before the lights make the corner and at least two of them stalk him even here.

_"He will lie," _the voice floods the alleyway, dripping with resentment and impotent rage. _"He will hide. Find him. Punish him." _

Another flash, just ahead of him, and an enemy materialises in his path and he dodges to the side, behind a trash container. He wonders about the mechanics of the programme running all of this inside his own head. That taunting, seething voice he can't escape, even if he escapes and defeats her minions.

It doesn't hurt him, but he wonders. He's looked at the programme closely before he's allowed it to mess with his head, it knows how to draw these things from him, from inside his mind. It says something about him, no doubt, just as his choice of entertainment does.

He leans out of cover, spots the robot walking down the alley on the other side while the other two come from behind. They'll meet not far from here, but the cone of light from behind is already dangerously close and he can't stay.

He scales the container, jumps down on the other side just as the light changes from emotionless blue to searching yellow, but he's out of sight for the moment, the container between them.

If he can make the end of the alley, he can turn left, circle around and get back to the generator from the other direction. He thinks the cover might be better there, too.

Another flash ahead and an enemy appears, stands as if disoriented, then turns and walks in the same direction Aiden has been going, pretending to have some purpose other than hunting him down.

_"He did this to us. It's his fault. Find him." _

He has some theories about the story being told by the game, but he supposes it doesn't matter much, it's all in his head anyway. He doesn't quite know what his subconsciousness means by most of it. Many things are his fault, after all. He's doing a good job of avoiding punishment.

He picks up speed, though carefully so not to alert his quarry as he closes the distance between them. It's the trick, of course, he's learned it the first time he's been here, but it's still surprisingly hard to stick with it in the suffocating darkness and the dry silence of the place. But _he _is the hunter here, he has no reason to be afraid.

He pulls up behind the robot, steps into his knee and it buckles, as helpless as they come, giving metallic sounds of pain. He smashes the baton over its head and again as it topples and lies still. He steps over the lifeless carcass even as it dissolves.

Past the mouth of the alley lies a small plaza, littered with planters and the remnants of a cafe. On the other end of the plaza, he spots the generator and stops, picking the best path without wasting too much time.

Staying in one place too long is never a good idea.

The robots he can see from here are too far away to become an immediate threat, so he just gives them a wide berth, memorises their locations and number for later.

He follows the outer edge of the plaza, between the walls of the houses and the tall planters that set up its boundaries. The last stretch is always dangerous, there never seems to be any good cover near the generators and while he commends the strategic thinking, its also a source of potential frustration and he catches himself wishing for _just one _easy one, just to shake things up.

When he's finally close enough, he pulls his phone out and begins the hack.

_"He is a murderer." _

It's hard to argue with that.

A flash too close behind, but he only turns and watches the robot appear, turns its head away and walk a few steps away.

_"A monster." _

Really, now?

Unexpectedly, the robot stops on its tracks, turns around and heads almost straight at him. They _never _come straight at him unless he's alerted them, their direction is always just a little off, teasing him with the option of evasion. But he doesn't feel like running. He's been circling this generator for too long.

Aiden stops the hack for the moment, jump starts to the side. It isn't quite far enough and he's too slow coming up from the crouched position. The light turns bloody instantly, but he pushes through, jumps the robot from the side, grips his arms and brings the baton down on it. A human would break, Aiden doesn't know what damage it does to this machine thing. It reacts beautifully, however, whimpers and bends. It's friends are already running for him, but they won't be able to save it. He smashes the baton into the small of its back and the thing crumbles, twitching, and goes still.

He runs to the right, away from the others and pulls the phone again, starts the hack and he thinks he can feel the progress bar through his thumb. The planters over decent cover and robots are slower than him — though never quite as slow as they seem — he can hold out to the end and when the generator goes, he's won.

A red beam finds him from somewhere behind and he loses the moment, swirls around and…

… the world frazzles out.

* * *

His phone buzzed by his ear.

"Dammit!" Aiden snapped. Water splashed from the bathtub as he came up a little too fast. He groaned and settled his head back against the soaked towel behind his neck.

After a moment, he pushed the washcloth up high enough he could see from one eye, trying to steal a glance at the phone without having to otherwise move. At least it wasn't an alarm, no need to hurry.

Steam wafted through the bathroom, heated warmth resting on him and it was far too comfortable to move, but as the minutes stretched, he realised he wasn't going to relax while he didn't know what was going on.

Growling quietly, Aiden reached for the phone and held it up, leaving wet prints on the screen as he thumbed through the menu.

A few days ago, someone new had moved into an apartment on the floor below him. He was an IT engineer working at an online security startup. Cracking his private system was more of a side projects for Aiden. He'd quickly ruled out the possibility the man was a fluke or possibly some kind of agent placed close to Aiden's primary home, but his story was coherent enough. Still, an IT guy working in internet security probably had a few interesting things on his computer.

A few hours ago, Aiden had put a password cracker to work. He hadn't really expected the brute force method to yield any results so quickly, but there you go. Preaching was one thing, sticking to your own strict security regime seemed quite another, even for IT professionals.

Aiden logged in and took a short walk through the man's files. He found a folder with unfinished projects he could look at with more leisure and a handful email exchanges with his colleagues that could come in useful. The man's browsing history was fairly dull, even his porn habits seemed painfully mundane. He'd dig a bit deeper later, Aiden decided, maybe something more useful was hidden away somewhere.

He transferred the phone into his other hand and reached out of the bathtub to the bottle on the floor. The glass was cool, slippery from condensation as he brought it up.

He took a sip as he opened up the programme code for the Digital Trip. He'd been experimenting with various patches for a while, never anything substantial, not while he didn't have the time to really learn the intricacies of the programme, but this was a minor change. He gave the programme access to his musical library. Al0ne used a sound frequency to block out outside noise and create the preternatural silence within the game, but he wasn't in the mood for that.

He gave it a dry run before he let it loose on his brain waves, but the analysis reported nothing abnormal. He emptied the bottle before the beer was hopelessly stale and set it back down. A last scan of his patch and he booted up the Trip, felt the slight sense of vertigo as he was pulled under slowly. He tucked the washcloth back over his eye and settled back comfortably.

* * *

_I won't deny it, I'm a straight ridah_

_You don't wanna fuck with me_

His Chicago is still deserted, but the imposter with the metallic voice only comes through distantly now. He imagines her being even more chastising and incensed now, shouting against the storm of music Aiden's brought with him this time.

Aiden steps through the barrier, the sunlight falls away behind him and artificial darkness beats up against him, desperate to push him out before he can do any damage but it's too late. Blue flashes ahead of him and he considers for a long moment as the robot's searchlight wanders over the ground, advancing on him.

He uses the shadow of a wrecked car, circles back around until he's behind the machine and stalks it quietly and he comes close enough to leap.

* * *

_End of _Me and My Shadow_

* * *

**Author's Note: **Real artists steal… right, so the entire bathroom thing happened because I rewatched Fight Club the other day. Also, one of the things that make Aiden interesting to me (I mean, everything about him makes him interesting to me, but that's beside the point) is that he seems quite ordinary in many ways. Like he's way past twenty-nine, he's not particularly good-looking, he can't do any weird acrobatics, he can't take a lot of fire in a fight… He's just some guy, being normal.

It's _extremely _difficult to fake musical taste. I have _no_ idea what I'm talking about. Alas, Aiden likes to pick his own preferences. He's listening to Tupac's 'All Eyez On Me'.

* * *

**Revised on **_19/May/2016_


	35. Firewalker – Part 1

**Warning:** A little sex, gratuitous violence, and a lot of collateral damage

**Author's Note: **I've been writing on this on and off for a while now. I wanted to hold it back to avoid mood whiplash with some of the other stories I've planned, but I realised I can't really focus on anything else until it's done. The chronology of Brilliancy is beyond saving anyway. I'm amazed you guys still put up with it… (Stories can be found in chronological order on ao3, though.)

* * *

[takes place in 2026]

**_Firewalker – Part 1**

* * *

The brothel's dimly lit hallway was choked with the lingering smell of human bodies, weed and cigarette smoke, the synthetic scent of air freshener mixing with cheap perfume. The prostitutes hung around their open doors, dull red light spilled out past them and burned away any individual trait they might have had, rendered them as nothing but breasts and thighs and blank faces, clothed in tacky lingerie and thick makeup.

It wasn't the most classy place in all of Chicago, but it did have some advantages which had become a rare commodity in other parts of the city, even down in the Wards. The brothel lay inside a ctOS blind spot, three streets worth without any cameras, without any surveillance other than what people carried in and out with their phones, watches or Lenses.

It was enough to give Aiden some insight of what to expect, enough to be sure he hadn't been walking into a trap when he came here half an hour before. A good place for a meet, if you didn't mind the stink or the background noise of fake moans and pathetic grunts.

Aiden stopped in the hallway, already reviewing the data on the projection made by the Lens in his left eye. Four years of cold war with DedSec and the last thing he had expected was one of them reaching out to him, giving him _this… _if it was trap, and there was always that, it was far too good to pass up. Blume was working on something big, bigger perhaps even than the new OS they were preparing to roll out next year.

"Hey, you, don't stand there all shy," a woman's voice interrupted him. He glanced to the side and through the open doorway. A woman sat on a bed, posed in what she clearly hoped was seductive. Profiler identified her as _Lucja Karznia, 23, expired tourist visa, prostitute, last internet search: alien abductions treu stories. _

She had two lamps behind her, one red and one purple, but neither left any details on her face visible. Feeling his scrutiny, she leaned back on her elbows and pushed her chest out a little more. "Why don't you come in?" she asked. "And close the door behind you."

She waggled her eyebrows.

Aiden held himself still. He had his phone in his hand, used the thumb to slow down the scowl of data across the Lens. ctOS upgrade, a new line of products to go with it. Blume was finally making headway in plugging their security vulnerabilities. DedSec hadn't come to him because they wanted to make peace with him, they had come to him because they didn't know who else to turn to.

He stopped the scroll of data completely before he turned and took two steps inside, just far enough that he could pull the door closed behind him. Its lock snapped only sluggishly and it dulled the sounds coming from the occupied rooms only a little.

The prostitute put on a wide grin, immediately replaced by a harder expression when she said, "Money's up front."

Aiden had come expecting to pay for the data, but 'Dave' had been twitchy and afraid, he hadn't even asked for payment. Only criminals still used cash these days and maybe whoever inhabited the bottom of the social ladder and _wasn't _criminal. Aiden pocketed his phone and pulled a rolled up bundle of money out. He held it up for her to see and she stood up, swiftly crossed to him and took the money, unrolling it partway. She frowned, looked from the money to him, but before she could ask anything, he took the bundle of money from her again and dropped it on the cupboard by his side. He picked up the can of spray-on from there with the same motion, stuffed it into the hand she still held out.

He was looking at what appeared to be everything DedSec had ever collected on Blume. Internal mails, dossiers, reports. Proposed future projects, system schematics, programme codes. Everything he'd ever need to crack Blume, but there was nothing more recent than two months ago. No wonder DedSec was scared.

The prostitute slid a hand down his arm, pulled him back to the bed. After she worked open the clasp of his coat, she had to get on her toes despite the exaggerated heels she wore so she could brush it from his shoulders. She caught it with practiced ease and tossed it to a chair set against the wall in the shadow. She sat down on the bed, ran her fingers down his chest, didn't comment on the dense layer of his bulletproof shirt or made any attempt to push it aside. She focused instead on the zipper of his jeans, worked it down and slid her hand inside.

She was talking in what he assumed should be seductive, but it sounded rehearsed, the same, tired old speech she gave every man who walked through her door. He paid it no attention.

Aiden guessed Blume had switched up their game exactly those two months ago. He'd seen mention of a ctOS code-named 'Praeterea'. It might be a serious system upgrade, but more likely given the context was that Praeterea was an entirely new OS, one built from scratch. DedSec's system keys weren't working on it and if that was true, even T-Bone's old backdoors were becoming obsolete, depending of how much of his code they were still willing to use.

His thoughts scattered briefly under the prostitute's hot, dry fingers and he focused on the sensation instead. It had been too long, he caught himself thinking, he should be glad his body even remembered how to respond and maybe somewhat bothered by the speed of it. He listened to the hiss of the spray-on and the momentarily strange feeling of cool constriction before it dried and the sensation normalised.

Blume had their fingers in pretty much everything these days, unsurprisingly, but DedSec had unearthed a number of political proposal that didn't seem to have leaked yet. Most notably, Blume was pushing for a increase in jurisdiction for their Corporate Police and they were running their own show already. They had the right to intervene in everything which affected Blume, their hardware and infrastructure or the stability or security of their networks. They'd come far from those days when they were just a bunch of redneck thugs in the Pawnee Militia. It had caused some kind schism and at least a part of former Militia had performed a a U-turn and found a new home within the offliner movement.

When the prostitute swallowed him down, a groaned worked itself from somewhere deep in his chest and put a hand to the back of her head, pushing his fingers through strands of thin, hairspray-dry hair for a better grip. He ground forward sharply, until he found her gag reflex and pushed harder for a moment, then used his hold on her head to pull her off him.

"Turn over," he said. "Give me the lube."

She scrambled to obey, wiping her mouth the moment her head was turned. She got up on hands and knees on the bed, reached for the lube on the bedside table, handed it over to him, but used the chance to squeeze some of it in her own hand.

The problem with Blume was, he had no idea how to solve it. If truth be told, he had hoped DedSec would give him more than a long list of failures. Blume was hemming him in, closed the doors and expanded their reach.

He slapped the prostitute's fingers away, gripped her hips and pulled her back against him, hilted himself roughly and jolting the woman forward on the bed. She moaned dutifully and almost got the rhythm right, too.

New hardware, Corporate Police jurisdiction, Praeterea… and that was just what he'd seen after skimming through DedSec's files for a few minutes, who knew what else was there? How long could he stay free if all of that went live?

The colours of the lights contrasted harshly with the writing in his eye and Aiden wished he'd lowered the transparency of the Lens. Nothing he could do about it now, though, so he narrowed his eyes instead and finally working up some faint burning in his muscles with the increasing speed of his thrusts, letting it chip away at his concerns over Blume, allowing his concentration to skitter until there was just some consuming heat left and the room filled with lewd sound of slapping of flesh.

He fucked her steadily, fingers wrapped around the bones of her hips, then reaching down, digging into the yielding flesh at the junction of her thighs, forcing her to cant up against him. She made a wailing sound, unrestrained enough it might even be real. She let herself fall forward, clawing the sheets. He certainly had paid enough for a decent performance.

For just a moment, his mind went blank. Part of him wanted to make it last, draw out the odd peacefulness of it, when he didn't have to think, when he didn't have to be aware of the edge he walked. He only gave a last, hard thrust, then pulled back and let the prostitute drop from his hands.

A tremor went through her entire body, a twiching along the muscles of her thighs, before she picked herself up and sat back on her knees, turning around to face him.

By then, Aiden had already picked up a handful of tissues from a box and wiped himself down, slipped off the used condom and tossed everything into a nearby dustbin.

The prostitute watched him silently, sultry expression slowly fading into vague confusion as he pulled his trousers up and stalked to where she'd tossed his coat.

"What are you…?" she began, gaze flickering uncertainly between him and where he'd left the money before.

Aiden opened the door, glanced over his shoulder and shrugged slightly. "Keep the change," he said.

The smell of the brothel clung to him as he walked out into the street, mixed with the stench of damp trash in the street. Aiden stopped just outside, sucked in a deep breath. At least the air was cooler here, less suffocating than inside and the ordinary white of the street-lamps was soothing in its simplicity.

His phone buzzed. _T-Bone calling, _the Lens announced. It got him walking, stepping down to the sidewalk, burying his hands in his pockets and head cast down for the added shadow of the cap.

He picked up the call.

_"'Dave' left twenty minutes ago," _T-Bone said. _"Something gone wrong? You need help in there?"_

"Not yet," Aiden muttered. "I got the data, I was just leaving. I'll be with you in a minute."

He followed the street, mindful of where ctOS coverage kicked back in. He could switch the Lens to display the camera angles, allow him to know when he was in their sight, but he didn't. Around here, it wasn't necessary.

A short walk brought him to a nearly abandoned parking lot on the back of a fenced-in derelict site.

Leaning on the hood, T-Bone waited with his arms crossed over his chest, watched as Aiden approached before he struck out a thumb at other car he'd parked beside.

"The 770S is yours?" he asked.

"In a manner of speaking."

"You got past the biometric lock?"

"Small side project, took a while, but I like fast cars. The manufacturer has an override signal that can be imitated using a phone."

T-Bone chuckled and shook his head slightly. "You mind sending me what you've got?"

"You got it," Aiden said. He pulled the drive he'd got off 'Dave' from his pocket and held it out to T-Bone. "And that, too."

T-Bone took the drive and climbed in the passenger seat of his own car, plugged the drive in and started copying the files.

"Ten minutes?" he asked, clearly surprised. "Just how much is there?"

"Like I said," Aiden replied, leaning against his car. "It's everything they've got. But there's nothing more recent than two months ago. Something happened at Blume that completely knocked DedSec out of their system. It's not been rolled out, yet, but it's safe to expect some major changes soon."

T-Bone glanced up at him, then back down at the tablet he was using to survey the data as it copied.

"My God," he murmured. "Have you seen the hardware schematics? Blume's struck a deal with most of Sillicon Valley to roll out an entirely new product line."

"Briefly, I haven't looked at everything."

"Well," T-Bone tapped the side of the tablet. "We're in for a _bad_ stretch. Blume's gearing up to replace _everything_. Software, hardware, you name it."

"And they got the legislation to back it up, too," Aiden added. "It's a neat dragnet they're weaving. Question is, how tight is it?"

"Can't tell," T-Bone said, still fixed on the screen. "I'll take it to Frewer, let him take a look at it, too. Don't expect good news."

"I never do."

T-Bone leaned his head back into the headrest, arching his brows. "You look like you've seen better days."

"Been up for twenty hours straight," Aiden shrugged, pulled himself back to his feet, stepped around his car and finally got in. "I'm heading home. I need a shower."

They waited in silence until the transfer was complete. T-Bone was browsing the data while it happened, sometimes he made a comment or cursed, depending on what he'd spotted, but Aiden was paying attention with only with half an ear. Once he got a few hours of sleep in, he'd be more useful anyway.

"Aiden?"

He glanced up.

"Catch," T-Bone said and tossed the drive through the open windows. Aiden snatched it out of the air on reflex, pocketed it and pulled himself straight in his seat, real leather creaked under his movement. The car still smelled new. He'd plugged it from the street just this evening, but he wasn't even sure the original owner had driven it much further than the parking lot of his apartment complex. Cracking the 770S' safety measures allowed him access to one of the fastest and most durable cars on the market. He didn't think it was going to last long, for now, though, the car was an edge he would exploit to its fullest.

"Get some shuteye," T-Bone advised. "I'll know more when you're back among the living."

Aiden only nodded and said nothing more. He started the car, the 770S' engine hummed quietly to itself and the car slid smoothly into motion, deceptively gentle, considering just how fast and powerful it would be with only slightly more pressure on the gas.

A few blocks from his home, Aiden's car was reported stolen and he had to ditch it in an alleyway.

* * *

Aiden walked into his apartment and let the coat slip from his shoulders to the floor. He dropped his phone and gun on the couch table and swiped the Lens out with his fingers.

He rubbed his sore eye with the back of a hand. You shouldn't keep the Lens in for more than six hours, which was why he switched between both eyes, expanding the time he could use it. Of course, setting up the meet and staking out the brothel had crashed right past that limit and he hadn't been able to take a break.

He took a deep breath, forced his eyes back open and picked up the drive again. He walked over to his desk, booted up his rig and plugged the drive in. He'd already prepared a quarantined partition for it, make sure nothing infiltrated his system and do any damage.

The chair looked inviting, but he pushed himself back from the desk and stood still for a moment, letting his mind wander. The wide half-circle of the windows around him gave him a breathtaking panorama of Chicago's glittering lights, spread out before and below him, captivating him.

He took another breath, squared his shoulders against some imagined leaden weight pulling him down. He dragged the bulletproof shirt over his head, straining against the heavier material before he got it loose. He tossed it over the back of the couch, went past the bathroom to switch on the light, but headed into the kitchen.

He didn't expect good news from T-Bone. Even the bits he'd already seen made the shape of the future abundantly clear. They might stand a chance if T-Bone found new exploits in Praeterea, but even then, what they had was an early version. DedSec certainly didn't think they could crack it. Even if T-Bone was better than any of them and so was Tobias — at least on a good day. Aiden liked to think he could give them a run for their money, too. But most likely, they were _all_ in over their heads.

He picked a pizza carton from the fridge, leaned a hip against the counter as he took a few bites from the last remaining slice. Through the open door, the saw the screens of his rig. Feeds from the buildings' in-house surveillance and the ctOS cameras outside, though he was too far away to make out more than faint movement. Nothing suspicious, as far as he could tell, but image recognition had progressed in leaps and bounds the past few years. His system would be able to pick up an aggregation of SWAT teams just outside well in advance, giving him more than enough time to prepare — or just get the hell out, whichever option looked more viable.

His phone buzzed and he was tired enough to give an annoyed roll of his eyes. He stalked to the phone, swiped it up and glanced at the display, carried it back to the kitchen. T-Bone… that was quick, even for bad news.

With all his gadgets strewn around his living room, he squeezed the phone between his head and shoulder, as he wandered back into the kitchen. He needed his free hand to open the fridge and pick up a bottlecan.

"Hey, just got home," he said. "What's…?"

_"Don't load the data!" _T-Bone shouted. _"It's infected and will phone home!"_

Aiden stood up immediately, turned on his heels and stared across the room at his screens. No doubt, T-Bone had safety measure much like his own, better ones at that, if it had surprised _him, _Aiden's system was almost certainly compromised, too. No two ways about it.

"Too late," he said and couldn't work up much emotion. He took one step forward, but stopped when movement caught his eye from beyond the window.

He had time to frown, a moment of confusion before recognition kicked in. Sleek and black, rendered almost invisible against the backdrop of the cityscape, a large drone hovered just outside, revealing its position only if moved or you knew exactly what you were looking for. Perhaps there were others, beside or behind it, all around the building, were there was no surveillance.

Aiden's screens lit up in bright white, all of them at once, and then displayed a line of simple black writing spread out across the screens and large enough to read even from where he stood.

_[I got you now.]_

It was timed, of course, to give him enough time to realise what had happened — and what was going to happen. Just long enough for him to know he could no longer escape, not hide or fight back.

Under the surge of adrenaline in his veins, the events around him slowed into futile, devastating detail. The drone opened fire from two rotary cannons mounted to its belly. The sustained fire shattered the windows and send a storm of vicious shards into the room. It minced his furniture, shattered expensive wooden panelling with the same ease it ripped apart concrete walls only for bullets to ricochet on steel beams. It tore through his computers to dancing sparks, the damage great enough to cause some kind of power surge that made the lights flicker even before they were shot down, plunging the entire place into a semi-darkness, lit only by muzzle fire and the distant lights of the city outside.

Aiden had no time to react other than just throw himself to the ground and then slide backward into the kitchen, into the treacherous promise of cover, though there was nothing here that'd protect him from the piercing force currently levelled against him.

If that was what it took to take him down… he could do without the appreciation.

His fridge dropped on his back, surprisingly heavy, considering it contained little else than two six-packs and maybe a jar of mayonnaise. He started to struggle, trying to pull himself free, but then stopped. Even an inch of additional padding between him and being torn to shreds was a good idea, he decided.

How long could the drone sustain fire? It had seemed like a fairly small machine, but he hadn't had time to make out many details. It would have to run out of ammo eventually and it wasn't doing enough damage to the skyscraper at large, so at least he wasn't going to be buried at the bottom of a very big pile…

He'd ended up with his head resting on the floor and it felt welcoming and solid, like he could just stay here until the pandemonium was over, but just because they had stopped shooting didn't mean anything was done at all. Whoever was attacking, whoever had set this up, had more resources than just one UCAV.

Who, though? DedSec? But 'Dave' hadn't been lying, his _fear _hadn't been lying and all the data couldn't have been faked, tampered with perhaps, but not made up from scratch just to lure him in. Blume had the money and ruthlessness to enact this sort of thing, perhaps DedSec's data had already been contaminated, a trap not meant for him specifically, but anyone who'd plug it in, stupidly thinking their security measure could stand up to it.

The message, on the other hand, it had seemed rather personal.

The last smattering of gunfire died away abruptly, but it took a while until it registered through the ringing in his ears and the noise of his own heartbeat. He knew he was breathing too fast, especially in the dust the drone had kicked up, choking himself even as he tried to steady himself.

As he blinked in the dust and darkness, something wet ran down the side of his face. He wiped at it with one hand, traced it back to his skull until his fingers found a cut just above his ear.

He got a gulp of dusty air into his lungs and he coughed violently, heaving himself up under the force of it, pushed his shoulders against the weight of the fridge until it slipped free from him and he could sit up, his back pressed into something solid, the wall maybe but he wasn't sure.

From far away, he heard the howl of the building's fire alarm going off.

He wiped at his eyes, probably smearing more blood, but his vision cleared slowly. Debris blocked the kitchen door, but he could see through the gaps into the living room, saw jagged edges of his destroyed furniture, bits of the ceiling as it had come down, a toppled wall on the back of the room where his bedroom used to be.

As he watched, dark shapes appeared outside, abseiling from a helicopter hovering somewhere out of sight. Looked like some kind of black ops team, armed to the teeth and dressed in black body armour. He watched as they spread out, guns ready, methodically searching the debris.

Aiden forced down the cough until it was only a scratching sound, uncomfortably lodged in his throat. He needed to _move, _now, otherwise he could just put his head back to the floor and wait for death.

Surprisingly, it took a split second longer than it should, just to make that decision.

* * *

_End of _Firewalker – Part 1_

* * *

**References**

A prototype for spray-on condoms actually exists, but the concept isn't really being developed.

_Praeterea_: lat. hereafter

_Bulletproof shirt_: obviously, some advance was made in regards to body armour.

Think of the _770S_ as a the succeeding model of the 550S in the game.

Obvious pun on Aiden's name here. (While we are at the topic of his name, do you have _any_ ideas what sorts of linguistic acrobatics I keep performing so I avoid calling his gaze 'piercing' and still get the idea across?)

* * *

**Author's Note: **I'm not completely sure if including the prostitute sex scene was a good idea. There's a reason for it, but I may be painting Aiden as morally more corrupted than I intended with it. It actually also depends on your personal opinion on prostitution in general, not something I've got a lot of control over.


	36. Firewalker – Part 2

**Warning: **Really fucking long chapter. Action-film level of realism.

* * *

**_Firewalker – Part 2**

* * *

The apartment moaned under the damage, broken concrete crumbling and the hissing of the wind through the destroyed windows picked up clouds of choking dust.

It couldn't have been more than a minute since the firing had stopped and the soldiers dropped into the apartment. It felt longer.

Aiden got to his feet carefully, mindful of the darkness. He could not know what else would break and crash at any moment, perhaps burying him for good before he even had a chance. He wondered if that had been the point. If he'd meant to survive just long enough to know he couldn't beat it.

He slipped on something, a broken piece of his kitchen counter perhaps, fell hard when he found nothing to hold on to. The fall tore a surprised grunt from him, picked up his element of surprise and hurled it out of reach.

As one, the soldiers turned to him, the white lights they had at the ready with their guns burned in his eyes.

He stepped free of the ruined kitchen and raised his arms, surprised at how hard he was breathing after only the short exertion. He couldn't see the enemy against the glare, could make out only faint shadows around the apartment and he barely recognised the place.

"My God," one of soldiers muttered. "How is he still alive?"

Aiden couldn't see which one it was. _Bad luck, _he thought wryly

He opened his mouth, but at first his throat refused to work, producing only an incoherent croak. He coughed, felt like he'd swallowed sandpaper and when he finally managed to force words out, they came out in a harsh whisper.

He said, "I surrender."

He could tell his enemy had not expected it. It was in their stance, what little he could see of them. It was in the way they went still for just a moment and hesitated despite the obvious training they'd had.

They weren't police, as much was obvious, something paramilitary perhaps. Blume Corporate Police was the obvious guess, they had the money and the training for just this sort of operation, and the political backing to get away with an all out assault in the middle of Mad Mile. Perhaps they were backed up by mercenaries flown in from somewhere where his dubious truce with the fixers didn't apply. Frewer's MIBs…

Whoever they were, Aiden had only a moment. He doubted they were going to just tie him up and deliver him bundled up to whoever was pulling their strings. Most of his enemies wanted him dead.

Glass crunched under his feet as he took another step forward, getting clear of some of the larger pile of debris and gaining some freedom of movement.

"Look, I give up," Aiden said, his voice still too rough, it'd make this a hard sell. "Just don't shoot, okay?"

Another step and by now he would be too close and their instincts and training would warn them. He said the shiver in the light as they tensed and he forced himself to relax his shoulders, let his hands drop just a little. Maybe it looked like he lacked the strength to keep them up and he wasn't entirely sure it was all playacting, either.

"Whatever you want," Aiden said. "You got it."

It didn't much matter what he said, as long as he kept talking they were less likely to open fire. He only needed a moment, an indrawn breath and whatever speed and reflexes he could still muster, because he had no time to think. Fake a stumble and get within reach. A lung, too quick to prevent and he struck the barrel of a the gun aside, twisted his wrist to wrap his fingers around it. He snapped his other hand up, gripped the butt of the assault rifle and jarred it up, out of the soldier's hand and around. Finger on the trigger before the movement was even finished, so the bullets ripped up over the soldier's groin and stomach, knocking him back with their impact.

Aiden whirled around, leaning against the recoil to compensate for the terrible angle and his bad grip on the upside down rifle, enough to make the others dodge back, even if he wasn't doing much real damage.

He didn't have much time after that. Aiden took the gun and drew back into the shadow, pushed through and ran for the door, kicked in what was left of it and burst through into the hallway outside his apartment in the time it took for his attackers to gather themselves.

The rotary canon had torn right through the hallway and destroyed the apartment across his own, but up and down the hallway, emergency lights had come on and the fire alarm was making itself heard from still functioning speakers.

Not enough time had passed for there to be a panic, yet. Aiden spotted a few wide-eyed people down the hall, standing dumbstruck in the shifty darkness. He didn't want to make them a target, so he turned the other way and ran down the hall, jumping over bits and pieces of wall, littering the hallway.

He skittered around the corner, just in time to avoid a hail of bullets impacting the wall across from him. They were too close behind him to outrun.

"Shit," he hissed, skittered around and leaned his shoulder into the corner, leaned out of cover and fired down the hallway to at least stall them. He drew back, a minor pause in the fire, then another burst, to keep them off balance. Enough so they waited another moment before they advanced, in case he fired again.

In truth, Aiden pushed himself to his feet almost immediately and raced down the hallway, following the emergency lights to the stairwell. The metal door screeched from disuse, probably gave him away, too, even in the general noise slowly mounting everywhere, between alarms and crumbling concrete.

Aiden took three steps at a time, going up, because down was too obvious. The thing any fleeing target would do. On the floor above, he gave the door a kick so it swung back and forth, but he kept running up two more floors.

He heard the soldiers below him on the stairwell, shouting short clipped orders between each other, splitting up to cover all directions.

People were streaming from their apartments up here, heading for the fire exits, confused but otherwise mostly calm. They stopped on their tracks when Aiden burst through the door into the hall and stood for a moment breathing, scanning his surrounding. The lights were still working on this floor. Some of the people had phones on their ears, or at least in front of them. He snatched one up, kept going before the young man he'd taken it from had a chance to be stupid enough to object.

He slowed down to a fast walk, giving him a chance to catch his breath, but bringing as many corners between himself and his pursuers as he could.

"I need a pickup on top of Millennium Point," he said.

He kept hurrying along the hallway, pressing against and with the stream of people, who gave him a wide berth once they realised he was carrying a gun and looked like an action film reject.

_"Can be arranged," _Jordi answered. _"When?"_

"Fifteen minutes ago."

_"Aren't we a little melodramatic here?" _Jordi inquired bemusedly. _"And I hate to disappoint, but time-travel is not a service I currently offer."_

"I'm not melodramatic," Aiden snapped. "I'm the target of some kind of black op. They blew out my apartment."

_"Wait, you've got a place in Millennium Point? Not bad, Pearce, not bad. I'd never have…"_

"Jordi!"

Aiden pushed through into another stairwell, climbed another story and returned to the hallway. His only chance was to shake his pursuers and get to the roof, bunker down somewhere and hope Jordi didn't take too long.

_"Hey, just saying. Alright,"_ Jordi said. _"I'm on…" _

The line went dead and Aiden slowed down just a little, took the phone down to check it. The screen had gone white and as he watched, black writing appeared.

_[I see you.]_

"What the…?" Aiden snapped his gaze up, scanned the ceiling and spotted the security camera mounted above. As if stung, Aiden drew back and into the open doorway for an apartment. The television was still running from when the people who lived here had abandoned it.

All the hallways had surveillance. He _knew _that, he'd tapped into it, after all. But even so, even he hadn't forgotten it, what would have done about it? Just shooting out the cameras wouldn't help and he'd just waste valuable ammo.

_[I know where you are.]_

Cursing to himself, Aiden picked the phone apart swiftly, hull and battery, tossed them all away, but he didn't even get a chance to think about what he would do next.

The telltale shadow of the drone lowered itself outside the windows and Aiden immediately withdrew back into the hallway, ran down even as the firing started behind him, following him as he ran under the camera's eye.

He slipped around a corner and the firing stopped, but no doubt another squad of soldiers was close behind. Aiden didn't stop, felt the camera as it tracked him through the door and into the stairwell. Men were coming up from below and at least it saved him the trouble of having to reconsider his strategy. Whoever was hunting him, he'd clearly tapped into the phone, he'd know Jordi was coming and that Aiden was trying to the roof.

Probably made no difference, anyway. He didn't _have _a choice, all he could do was keep going.

He tried not to think about the other people who had been in that hallway only a moment before, those without the warning he'd had.

He was about to run past the next floor, but stopped abruptly and turned back. A small sign said _Electrical Room. _

By now, news of the carnage on the floors below seemed to have spread through the building and the people he passed were agitated, some panicking. They were crowding around the elevators out of habit, others were making for the stairs. He pushed through them until he reached the metal door at the end of the hallway. It was locked, with a worn-looking key pad at the side.

Aiden glanced down the hall, felt the camera watching him, but for the moment there was no one else.

He could try shooting in the lock, but he'd risk jamming it. He put the gun in one hand, kept glancing to the side, but focused on the key pad. It was old, keys worn out with use and time.

"Shit," Aiden said, but started tapping the first possible code combination. A small red light flared up to deny him.

Another and another, still red. Who even picked a number not starting with one? Of all the people to remember password safety tips, it had to be this one.

He couldn't see them, but he thought he could sense the pursuers closing in and he was beginning to think he'd made a mistake. It was a dead-end, he'd effectively cornered himself. He should've kept running while he still could instead of trying to play it clever, but twenty-four had seemed like a workable number just a moment before.

3169, 3196, 3619…

A tiny movement caught his attention from the corner of his eye, but when he looked up, there was nothing. As he stared down the hallway, waiting for the movement.

The camera shivered to the side a little and Aiden flattened his back against the wall by the door, just in time for the first bullet to shoot past him. The first burst missed and he dropped down to one knee, brought his rifle up and send a volley into the wall at the end of the corridor, making sure he pulled up and took out the camera, then yanked down just in time to hit someone in the face. He heard yelling as they rearranged themselves.

He shifted forward and pulled up. The gun was too heavy to fire with one hand and hope for anything like accuracy, but all he needed was to keep them pinned down around that corner.

3691.

The gun clicked emptily and his arm and shoulder ached from the force. It'd be a second until they realised he was out. Enough for a last try.

3916.

The lock clicked open and Aiden threw himself through the door, pushed it closed behind him, threw himself around, engaged the lock from the inside. Barely another moment passed before he heard the first bang on the door, but the metal held for now.

The electrical room wasn't very large, it contained the distribution panels for the upper floors, lined up against the walls on either side.

By the door was a desk and a chair, a locker cabinet. A handful of tools were strewn around in something of a mess. Aiden picked up a screwdriver as he went, pushed it into the back-pocket of his jeans and went to the fuse box. Unlike the rest of the room, this one seemed to have been replaced recently. It had a touchscreen monitor mounted on it, some parts flashing in warning red.

Something banged on the door again, it sounded like the butt of a rifle. "Hey you!" someone shouted. "We accept your surrender!"

Under his breath, Aiden muttered, "Offer expired."

If the janitor or whoever had been here before him had remembered to lock the screen, it would be over. Aiden had no tools available to him, no way to force access to the power grid. But it wasn't, the screen responded eagerly to his touch. It connected to the distributer boxes on the other floors and to the generator in the basement.

It was a fiddling piece of work. The software that ran the power distribution in the building could do everything he wanted it to, but it was never meant to do it in this way. He needed to overload the grid, make sure no one could easily fix it. At the same time, he wanted the generator to kick in and power the emergency lights. His night vision was good, but total darkness wasn't what he wanted. Just an edge. He had spotted night-vision goggles on any of the soldiers, they'd be flying blind.

The programme was Blume software, he had never seen this type of iteration, but he was more than familiar with Blume's work, everything ran on the same core. He found the command console and set about rewriting some of the standards.

He set a small time delay, then went back to the door. There was no key pad on the inside, this direction, the door opened at a push. He paused, went through everything in his mind to make sure he hadn't made any obvious mistakes in his haste.

Even so, his chances weren't looking stellar. He had an empty gun and a screwdriver, a momentary element of surprise against what looked like a small army of extremely well-equipped mercenaries.

Back by the door, he closed his eyes as he counted the seconds off in his head, hand resting on the handle until the time was right. He pressed down, the lock disengaged while behind him, the fuse box overloaded with cackling, blue sparking electricity before a hard snap seemed to go through the entire skyscraper and it was plunged in darkness.

It'd be a moment before the generator kicked in and barely as much for trained soldiers to be disoriented even in that situation.

Aiden thrust the door open with all the force he could muster and earned himself a painful grunt from whoever had been right outside the door. He used the rifle as a club, beat its heavy butt into someone's stomach, jabbed to the other side with the gun until there was the resistance of flesh and someone trying to grip the gun from the front and someone else's hand closing around his shoulder, then immediately going for his arm and trying to trip him.

Aiden leaned into the grip, too close for the fumbling step to take his balance. He dropped the gun and with the new free hand, he pulled the screwdriver, twisted it like a knife and stabbed it hard back, into where the neck must be for the man holding him. The screwdriver slipped on the collar, but the man yanked away, enough that Aiden got his arm free and twisted around and reached for him, found his throat by touch alone and this time got the screwdriver through his neck.

The man gargled, more in surprise than actual pain. Aiden ripped the screwdriver out again. Sensed some open space on his left and ducked into it just as the emergency lights came on and bathed the hallway into a dull orange gloom, barely enough to make out bulky shadows.

Someone came at him, a combat knife ready, catching the light and betraying itself. Aiden caught the man's wrist, twisted, but earned himself a slice along his arm before he could get a good hold. He punched the man in the jaw, twice in quick succession, just where the protective visor over his eyes ended.

His moment was gone by then, of course. He'd downed two, maybe three, from what seemed to be eight men. Time for a retreat. He gave someone's — or his — dropped rifle a kick and slithered over the ground along the hallway, where he picked it up running. Weight alone told him it wasn't his, this one still had some ammo in it.

He didn't waste it on the group by the electrical room. He made the corner, heard them behind, trying to catch up, but their number alone put them at a slight disadvantage, enough to take him around yet another corner and through the door, back into the stairwell.

The blackout had tipped the skyscraper finally into chaos. After 9/11 people didn't handle emergencies in skyscrapers too well, especially when armed men were involved. People were about everywhere, some already in hysterics or clearly too confused to look for an exit. In the semi-darkness, they couldn't make him out clearly enough and he didn't linger to give them a chance.

Thick smoke crawled along the ground, it smelled of burning plastic. The sprinklers were on the same network as the emergency lights, but he wasn't sure if he'd rerouted them or not.

Time to think. He didn't want it, but just running up flights of stairs gave him exactly that. He thought of the people in the hallway below him, when the drone had shot in the windows in the second apartment. He hadn't seen it, but he knew they'd been gunned down when the bullets tore through the walls, caught in the crossfire without any fault of their own. The blackout and the explosion he'd caused would take their share of victims, too.

He cursed to himself, but didn't slow down. He couldn't save them now, could he? Maybe he'd never been able to save anyone at all.

He slowed down a little when he reached the 50th floor, he seemed to have got rid of his pursuers for now. He took stock of his state. A still bleeding gash at the side of his right arm, but while it was vaguely painful and made his grip on the stolen combat knife somewhat slippery, it hadn't actually done any damage that'd hinder him. The cut on his head from the original attack had stopped bleeding, caked several lines of dried blood down the side of his face. He'd tried rubbing them away, but he wasn't sure it had done much good. He was starting to feel the numerous points of pain from the bruises on his back and shoulders and there was an alarming burning deep in his limbs.

It was hard to judge how much time had passed, a handful of minutes perhaps, but it felt longer. Smoke lingered around the ground, but he couldn't make out its source.

"Hey," someone said and Aiden snapped his head around. He hadn't heard the movement of the door below him, nothing to tip him off at all. Or perhaps he'd got careless and paid no attention.

He brought the gun up before he had time to register anything. A young man stood on the landing, just past the door. He was holding a shotgun at him, but he was dressed only in jeans and T-shirt, not combat gear.

"You're him! Fuck!" he announced. He turned his head and yelled back, "Hey! Owen! I got him!"

Another man came through the door, he was holding a handgun in one hand and a cellphone in the other. He glanced down at it, then up at Aiden.

"Shit, man, it's really him!"

Aiden frowned. "What's going on?"

Both young men shuffled back half an inch when he spoke, both of them training their weapons on him. Aiden lowered his own gun, waited until he saw them relax just a little before he took one step down.

"Hey, stay right there!" the one with the shotgun snapped. He grinned. "Man, I can't believe it! You really live in here!"

"What do you want?" Aiden asked. He didn't feel very threatened. The two of them, although armed, wouldn't be much of a problem. He could jump them right from where he stood and they didn't look like they had the reflexes to stop him.

The other one, the one called Owen, held out his phone and turned it around, Aiden spotted a picture of himself on the display.

"Weird," the young man explained, but shrugged, uncaring. "We got a text, like a couple of minutes ago. Right after the power went out. I think everyone got them? It says whoever takes you down gets… wait for it… _10 million dollars." _He gave a dirty grin to go with the number. "Dead only five," he added as if that was just a terrible ripoff.

"You think you'll get to collect on that?" Aiden asked in honest disbelief.

Both young men grinned. Owen said, "Worth a shot, if you know what I mean. Nothing personal. I like watching the police chase you. They're making such an ass of themselves every time!"

His friend hesitated, then said, "So… are you going to come quietly?"

Aiden still frowned, waiting for things to start making sense, but it wasn't a very complicated concept. Some kind of would-be mastermind was behind all of this, someone with access not only to money and mercenaries, but also ctOS. With the blackout, the cameras had been rendered useless and the squads of armed men scouring the building had been casting about in the dark for a while now, Aiden didn't have as much trouble avoiding them. Pitting the entire building up against him was a clever idea, callous of course, but not without its merits.

Aiden tilted his head, pretended to think about it, "Sure."

He put his gun down slowly, perhaps making a little more show of it than necessary. He went down the stairs in measured movements until he was only two steps away from the landing and the two young men, both of them fidgeted a little the closer he came, suddenly not quite as sure of their advantage anymore as they had been. Making them wait any longer would just be cruel.

Aiden made short work of them, neither of them with reflexes good enough to put up much of a fight. Aiden slapped the shotgun aside, stepped in close and head-butted him. The young man collapsed with a thin whine, dropping the shotgun as he crumpled. Owen had time to flinch back, eyes going wide in shock, unable to do much more than flail his arm in a useless attempt to bring his gun up before Aiden took it from him.

Still in shock, Owen raised his hands, "I'm sorry! We meant… we thought… shit!" he stuttered, faltered and his eyes went even wider. "Don't kill us!" He glanced at his downed friend, who'd curled up on his side, clutching his face with both hand, blood welling running down between his finger.

"Give me the phone," Aiden said and Owen blinked slowly several times, then held it out.

Aiden pocketed the phone. He picked up the shotgun and took out the slugs before he dropped the gun. No doubt they had more ammo somewhere, but it was the symbolism of the thing and he couldn't take the shotgun with him, the handgun would be more useful.

Aiden climbed back up the steps, picked up the rifle and glanced back over his shoulder at the two young men. Owen was still holding his hands up and didn't seem to have moved at all. His friend whimpered quietly. Neither of them seemed willing to follow him, so Aiden didn't say anything.

He hurried up the stairs and out into the hallway one floor above, he didn't meet any more people. Several apartment doors were open and he edged inside carefully, making sure no one had hidden away in there. Only when he'd done a quick round through the place did he allow himself to relax. He went to the kitchen, badly lit in the gloom from the lights outside. Found the fridge and a bottle of water, he drank deeply.

He wasn't safe here, he couldn't stay. He needed to get to the roof and maybe this pause was the worst decision he'd ever made, but he sat down on the kitchen table anyway, pulled the phone out and pulled up the text the two young men had spoken of. True enough, someone was offering a ridiculous amount of money for his corpse, or his incapacitated body or even any tips or hints on where he was. If everyone in the building had received the same message, he could be sure more than just those two idiots were on the hunt, looking for him and those would be the dangerous types. Not because of skill, but because all reasonable people would be trying to get out, fictional fortunes or not.

Sender ID was blocked, as expected, and he lacked his usual tools to crack it. What was comparatively easy to do was find some unprotected routers in the neighbourhood and use them to bounce his own signal around. No doubt someone was monitoring cellphone activity, but right now, he'd have to dig through a lot of white noise to find him, he probably had a few minutes.

He called T-Bone, hoped the man had some working security of his own, in case the call was tracked faster than he thought. No need to pull T-Bone down with him.

"Aiden," he said when T-Bone picked up.

_"What do you need?"_ T-Bone asked without any preamble.

"There's a message saved on this phone, I need you to track the sender for me."

_"Give me a sec…"_ T-Bone said. _"Yeah, I'm seeing it. 10 million bucks? That's a _lot_ of dough."_

"Tell me about it, lets make sure no one goes bankrupt paying it," Aiden said. He took another gulp of water and forced himself back to his feet. "I'll leave the phone here, don't wanna be tracked, be careful yourself. I'll get back to you if I can."

_"You sure that's all the help you need?"_

Aiden thought about it, "No, but it's all I'll get. What's up out there?"

_"Complete state of emergency,"_ T-Bone snorted. _"CPD has blocked off half of Mad Mile around Millennium Point, they're even out on the water. The entire area is being evacuated. Firefighters have moved in on the lower floors, getting people out. WKZ is on the fence over whether they want to report a terror attack or a tragic accident, it's obvious they have no idea. Cops are everywhere, so's Corporate Police, but there ain't anything official from Blume yet."_ He paused. _"What _is_ going on?"_

"I have an idea, but… I don't know," Aiden sighed. He looked around the apartment, but couldn't find a second phone he could use and he had no time to search for one. He returned to the kitchen, picked up the water again, but didn't get to drink.

He heard the movement out in the hallway, the heavy tread of armoured soldiers and quiet orders being called back and forth as they swarmed out in the hallway.

"T-Bone, I have to keep moving," Aiden said. "Just find me that sender."

He took the phone down, pulled out the trash, dropped it behind and closed the cabinet again. Whoever came following the phone was welcome to waste time looking for it.

He drew back, further into the shadows and slipped to the door, listened attentively for the soldiers. It sounded like they were going door to door, if he moved fast, he could get out just ahead of them, but peeking outside put that thought to rest quickly. They were already too close, working in teams of two, one always remained in the hallway while his comrade searched the apartment.

Slowly, he slipped down until he could lean the assault rifle against the wall a little away, so he wouldn't kick it out of sight if there was a scuffle, pulled out the combat knife instead. The only silent weapon he had, for whatever that was going to be worth. He leaned back into the wall, pulled the door inward to cover him.

He heard some argument break out somewhere down the hall, some tenant having barricaded himself in home instead of running away like most others. Several other voices joined in, then were bellowed down by one. There was no more complaint after that, but at least the soldiers didn't seem to have killed someone.

Aiden waited, tensed when a shadow filled the doorway and a soldier edged inside slowly, gun ready. Aiden had time to watch the advance for a moment, hidden in the shadow and out of the line of sight, but it couldn't last. Any moment, the soldier would give the door a shove and know someone was behind it. Aiden didn't wait for that. He stepped out from behind the door, he tried to do it quietly, but the soldier must have caught it anyway, swirled around to meet him, but Aiden jumped first, combat knife in his hand and he didn't hesitate. Aiden got a hold of the soldier's head and yanked it back, enough to expose a thin line of vulnerable skin just underneath the jaw and sliced the blade across, cutting as deep as he could. The soldier made a wailing sound, the voice seemed to be female, but it was hard to tell under all the gear. The knife had cut deep, severed her vocal cords and she dropped her gun, both hands going for her throat in a useless attempt to stem the burst of blood.

Aiden ignored her. He pulled up straight, turned and pulled the handgun, held it out and fired three shots at the man just outside without taking much time to aim. Two bullets impacted the bulletproof shirt, but the third got him in the face and he slumped down.

"He's here!" someone else yelled from down the hall.

In mid-movement, Aiden collected the female mercenary's rifle and threw himself into the hallway, rolled to his feet and fired down the corridor while bullets whizzed over his head, but his vision had adapted well enough by now and he could pick out the paler faces in the gloom and once he'd downed several of them, the others were smart enough to withdraw into more defensive positions inside doorways and around corners. A bullet ripped past his arm, seared deep into his flesh and he felt the blood run down hot and wet. Aiden stood up and jump-started again, but he didn't get far.

An explosion shook the upper floors of the skyscraper, the vibrations crawled through the floor and the walls, hard enough that it knocked Aiden down again. He couldn't tell if the explosion had been above or below. Several smaller ones followed and dust started sailing down from the ceiling.

Regaining his feet, Aiden glanced over his shoulder as he ran. The soldiers had already recovered from their surprise and opened fire. Aiden had to duck into another open doorway.

He breathed hard, the sound roaring in his ears, because he was pinned now. He looked around the apartment for some kind of cover, something more durable than a couch or a press board table. He saw nothing. He made his way through the apartment, through another door and into the a bedroom. No cover here, either, no connecting doors.

He heard the soldiers outside and he doubted he could cheat his way out of it with another fake surrender. He brought the gun up, pressed his back against the wall by the door. There was still a chance, he just needed to shoot true every-time.

An odd clinking sound came from just outside. Aiden frowned, not sure why he even heard it over the telltale rustling of the soldiers' combat gear and the metal on metal of their other equipment and weapons.

The sound came again, like stone, bursting apart followed by a low hiss and then the kitchen exploded in a white-light-blue fireball expanding outward. It blew out the windows and bulged out the wall to the bedroom Aiden was pressed against, knocking him to the floor as a wave of flames rolled through the door, igniting the carpet and the furniture.

The air was too hot to breathe and flames lashed over his back as he struggled to get away. He rolled over, blinking rapidly in an attempt to clear his vision, but he saw nothing but black smoke and orange flames. With a hand over his mouth and nose, for whatever good that'd do him, Aiden brought his rifle up and fired at the windows until they splintered outward, enough to allow a gust of cold wind to sweep in. It fanned the flames to burn brighter, but it gave him a lungful of fresh air, too.

Outside, he heard screaming from the soldiers. As Aiden pushed through into the living room he saw them scattered around the room like rag-dolls. Some lay motionless, burning silently, others were unfortunate enough to be still alive, rolling on their back screeching as they burned and trying to put out the fire as it ate through the bulletproof material. From a corner, someone was frantically calling for help over the radio, he stopped when he spotted Aiden, eyes bright in a soot-covered face.

Aiden ignored him, pushed through the burning debris and out into the hallway, catching blisters and singed hair when he came too close or just from the way the air itself was hot.

It didn't look much better out in the hallway, worse if anything. The dull glow of the emergency lights joined the angry flicker of fire, shimmering through the smoke. Aiden slung his arm over his face and hurried down the corridor, trying not to breathe too deeply.

Other explosions kept shaking the building, stalked him along the corridor and made him pick up speed with every step. He had one more floor to go before he could reach the roof and he was fairly sure the first explosion had been above, so he couldn't be sure he'd get through there.

He could only guess what had happened. His messing with the power grid must have caused a chain reaction in other systems of the network, something big enough to rupture a gas pipe. There should be emergency shutdowns for this sort of thing, but his overload had been a hurried job, no way to tell what damage he'd done to the system. Blume made their networks too tight, concentrated too many vital components in one place. It had always been the weakness in the way they worked and what made it so easy for him and other hackers to exploit them. Get into one subsystem, you have them all. Or in this case, blow up one and they all fail.

The smoke was thinner in the stairwell and Aiden passed by a handful of people heading down. Some of them looked badly burned and lost, following the herd because there was nothing else to do, others seemed more together, giving him a confused frown when he pushed through.

Someone said, "Are you sure you're heading the right way?"

Aiden stopped and turned, found a middle-aged woman look back at him, determination written square across her face under a layer of sweat and dirt.

"Don't worry about me," he said.

She studied him, gaze passing over him, the gun slung over his shoulder and marks of fire and bullets on his bare skin. She frowned. "You're the vigilante," she said, voice perfectly neutral.

"I just live here."

"It's all your fault, isn't it?"

She must have received the message promising the bounty and drawn her own conclusions about what was going on. She wasn't far from the truth, either. Aiden didn't feel like arguing.

"Listen, if you have your phone with you… can I borrow it?"

He didn't expect her to smile, but it was an involuntary, tired expression and it vanished quickly. "Borrow?" she asked and shook her head. "Keep it."

She reached into the inside of the jacket she wore and pulled out the phone, held it out to him with pointed fingers, so she wouldn't touch him.

"Thank you," he said. He tried to think of something else to say, but everything seemed shallow and meaningless. There was no point trying to placate her and she didn't deserve to be manipulated it, but she already turned away from him before he even reached a decision. Without giving him even one more look, she started the long climb down the stairs, coughing as the smoke grew thicker on the floor below.

Aiden pushed himself back into motion, felt the way his limbs had gone stiff during the short break and it took almost the entire way to the next floor before he felt some strength return. He pulled the woman's phone up, dialled Jordi's number.

"Where are you?"

"_Where are _you?" Jordi asked back, impatiently, the droning of the helicopter nearly drowned him out. "_I'm circling Millennium Point and that's quite the feat on its own, because CPD is all over that place. I had to borrow a police helicopter, but it's only a question of time until someone figures out I'm too awesome to be one of them." _

"I'm almost there, can you see how bad the 54th looks? There've been explosions."

"_Looks pretty much on fire from here." _

"There's an armed drone, have you seen it?"

"_No and I don't really want to, why would you say something like that?" _

"Would you rather it'd be a surprise?"

It would have been too easy if the stairwell went all the way up to the roof, but it stopped on 54 and a small sign said 'Roof Access' and an arrow pointing him through the door and into the hallway. He could already smell the fire.

"_No, not really," _Jordi said, having apparently considered the option. "_I haven't seen it, but now you've made me nervous." _

Aiden eyed the door. "I'm in the northwest stairwell, can you see if 54 looks better elsewhere? I'm not sure I can get through here."

"_You _are _in the good corner already," _Jordi announced. He was silent for a long moment, then said, "_I'm… sorry." _

Aiden clenched his teeth. Even a small step closer to the door made the heat spike.

"Stick around," Aiden told Jordi. "I'll try it."

He hung up before Jordi had a chance to say anything. He didn't move right-away, considered calling T-Bone. But what use was the sender ID to him right now? It only mattered if he got through this and any second he wasted, it was just likely to get worse. He pushed the phone into his back-pocket, felt it scrape along the screwdriver he'd almost forgotten about.

He put the hand to the door and pushed it open.

* * *

_End of _Firewalker – Part 2_

* * *

**Author's Note:** You know Pearce is under pressure when he voluntarily drinks _water. _Also, I really had trouble remembering real people can't carry dozens of guns and other equipment in their spandex space. Aiden doesn't even get a shirt in this one.

Aiden: probably the only guy with a smartphone who actually remembers phone numbers.

Millennium Point does not exist. _Harbor _Point, however, does.

**Full disclosure on the age thing: **It's only a question of time until it really comes up (pun totally intended). First, Aiden won't go all weak and feeble on you, on me or on anyone. Drop the idea right now or be disappointed. Second, he was at his absolute worst in Quaint Old World (because sitting on your arse for ten years will do that to you). Third, there's a video of 70-year-old bodybuilder you want to google (because it's kickass).


	37. Firewalker – Part 3

**Warning: **Character death, and this chapter is even longer (there was no good point to cut it)

**Author's Note: **Sorry, took longer than I expected to finish this. I couldn't get it to sound right and it was an overblown mess of lengthy but lacklustre description and stilted dialogue. Or maybe that's just the way I write…

* * *

**_Firewalker – Part 3**

* * *

The smoke was worse than the fire itself, it burned in his eyes and mouth, filled his lungs. It was everywhere in the hallways, made it difficult to orient himself. There was no straight way. Several apartments had been blown out, filling the hallways with burning debris, blocked his path and forced him to backtrack, break through ruined walls to find another way.

Aiden ditched the assault rifle for a dead man's fire extinguisher. It was already half empty, so he tried to conserve it for when he really needed it.

He found some cloth he could tie over his face, for whatever good it would do against the smoke and the heat. Flickering fire and the steady glow of the emergency lights mixed through the smoke, made it hard to tell one from the other until he was close enough to feel the heat.

He was aware of the blisters forming on his skin, but there was nothing he could do, so he ignored it, he'd deal with the pain when he had time.

At least, someone outside seemed to have managed to turn off the gas and there hadn't been any more explosions in a while. Small favours and all.

He was beginning to wonder if he wouldn't have stood a better chance against the private army waiting on the floors below. How many mercenaries had flooded into Millennium Point by now? If it was Blume, they'd have bought off CPD, and the firefighters had other problems to deal with. Next morning, it would be a PR nightmare, but it wouldn't matter to Blume if they had his corpse to show for it. If he went down, Blume could just spin the story any way they liked, blame him for everything. Of course, if he _didn't_ go down, it'd be much the same. Fingers would point his way and he could either take it lying down, or risk exposure by defending himself.

This was easier, private at least. It was closer, too. If he had options, he wouldn't trust in Jordi like this. Jordi worked for himself, made his own calls, but he'd spent _years _making it a point turning down any job that'd pitch him directly against Aiden. If he didn't know any better, Aiden would've taken it for a show of friendship.

Without any options, Jordi was the only one he knew who'd be able to procure a chopper and come pick him up in the middle of a no-fly zone. And besides, Jordi was under much the same pressure he was. The rules were changing fast and Jordi knew it. The lone wolves were going down first everywhere.

Part of a wall had collapsed into the hallway, jammed with broken and still burning furniture, but Aiden couldn't find a way around it. He nearly depleted the fire extinguisher, burned his arms and hands dislodging jammed pieces of crumbling wall and broken wood. Something snapped under him and he slipped, something sharp cut into his shin. He cursed, pulled himself free and staggered the last few steps, then regained his balance and beat at the patch of jeans that had caught fire in the mess.

If he hadn't lost all orientation he shouldn't be much further from the roof, but when the metal door finally appeared ahead of him, he suppressed a feeling of relief, threatening to choke him worse than the smoke.

The roof access door was secured with a padlock, but he didn't feel like questioning the low-tech feature, he just used the fire extinguisher to bash away at it, until the padlock broke.

A narrow stairway went up the rest of the way, another door, though it at least wasn't locked, and Aiden finally stepped out onto the roof. The wind tore on him, cool on his singed skin and welcome in his sore lungs. He ripped the cloth from his face and leaned back against the wall by the door.

He had a moment to look around, saw the helicopters in the air and the diffuse glow of the fire from below. The howl of sirens was audibly from very away, barely reaching him before the wind dispersed it.

A shot tore into the wall by his head and he snapped up, focussed on the man who'd stepped out of the shadow on the roof with a raised gun. He had time to recognise Marcus Brenks' face, but wasted no more time. With an enraged cry, Aiden launched himself from the wall, threw the fire extinguisher at Marcus and closed in behind it.

Marcus twisted to the side to avoid the fire extinguisher, took it on his left arm, but had no time to bring his gun back up before Aiden tore him from his feet.

It was only a short struggle. The back of Marcus' head hit the ground hard, pinned there by Aiden's weight, who closed one hand around Marcus' right wrist and crushed his forearm over his throat. Marcus free arm came up, fumbled for purchase along Aiden's arm, tore into the gunshot wound there, but Aiden only hissed sharply at the pain and increased the pressure on Marcus' throat.

"Stop it," Aiden snarled when the young man kept struggling, making sounds like a wounded animal, trying to bring the gun back around.

Marcus grinned madly. "I can't."

He pulled up his legs, used the leverage to try to roll over. Aiden leaned back, released Marcus' throat. He jumped up, yanked the young man with him, punched him in the jaw enough to make Marcus pivot in an attempt to lessen the blow. Aiden didn't let go of the wrist, but reached for Marcus' upper arm with his other hand, closed his fingers tight and shifted his grip for the right angle. He wrenched down.

Marcus screamed and trembled when the joint of his shoulder was dislocated, but he didn't let go of the gun, only clenched it tighter with whatever control he retained.

Baring his teeth, Aiden pulled on the damaged arm again, dragged a pained scream from Marcus, but finally his fingers went lax and the gun clattered to the ground.

Aiden kicked it away, toward the distant edge of the building. It pulled Marcus' gaze with it and he looked like he was about to leap after it. Aiden stepped forward and kicked Marcus' feet away from under him.

The young man managed to stop his fall with his good arm, but it was an awkward move and he didn't come back up immediately.

"I knew it was you!" Aiden shouted. He took a few steps back, out of Marcus' easy reach. "What the fuck are you doing?"

Marcus watched him, eyes wide from pain and something else. "You were right," he said, plaintively, but with laughter at the back of his throat. "I… I can't. I have to try, you know. I have to kill you, but… I don't know anymore."

He let his head hang. "It was the only way," he said, looked up again. "You stepped up your game, you were so hard to find and when I couldn't find you, it got so _bad." _

"All of this?" Aiden demanded, threw an arm out in a sweeping gesture. "Everyone who died tonight? Everyone who lost someone, just because you couldn't _find _me?"

Marcus nodded. A grin flickered across his features, he said, "Yes, but it… I have a plan, you have to believe me."

He leaned forward and struggled to his feet slowly. "Shit, that hurts," he breathed, eyes drooping briefly. "It kind of helps, actually. It distracts. Never had the guts to try pain."

He took a deep breath, standing, faced Aiden. "It had to be this way. I knew you'd survive. I knew you'd make it. I knew you'd go up. So I waited, but…" he stopped and shook his head. "I'm not making much sense, am I?"

"Can't say I care."

Marcus seemed to brace himself, his good shoulder and arm hanging almost as lax as the dislocated one. "I looked at Blume. I found bellwether, but it wasn't… this," a small gesture with his left hand. "It was something else. So I looked further and I found it. It's a variant of bellwether, they called it harbinger. It's only purpose is to hunt you. That's what it's supposed to do, find you, online and in the real world and it uses… us. But there's no us anymore, there's just me, because I took care of them, because harbinger won't let you quit on your own."

He looked around, gaze tracing the outline of the building, the dark of lake and blazing city skyline. "I couldn't jump," he said meekly. "Even if I wanted to, but it won't even let me want to."

"If you want me dead," Aiden said. "Then come after me, but leave everyone else out of it."

Marcus laughed, snapped his gaze back to Aiden and then tilted his head sideways in an odd, birdlike way. "What if I don't want to? I still hate you for killing Dad, but that's _mine _and it's different. Harbinger… it won't really let me think straight. It's just calling for your blood all the time, but… maybe a part of me wants to just move on, but I can't really think like that. So I cheat it. I lied to myself. I pretended I'm planning. I set it up, I prepared. I sacrificed DedSec for this and Blume sent the army I asked them to. I brought a gun and I used it. But…"

Marcus took a slow step forward, eying Aiden, then another when Aiden didn't move away.

"I remember you, from when I was a kid, hanging around at Dad's house and… I'm still pissed with you and him, but Blume crossed the line. It's so much worse. You haven't seen the others, at least I had the right weapons to track you. That helps, you know. At least a little."

He took another step and he was within arm's reach. "If I could choose a side now, it wouldn't be Blume or harbinger. If I could pick an ally…it'd be you."

Slowly, Marcus took a small, final step, close enough to touch, but he didn't at first. Then, however, he dropped his head on Aiden's shoulder. His forehead was fever hot on Aiden's skin, his head heavy as he leaned down. For a long time, neither man moved.

"I think killing you wouldn't make it stop," Marcus said so quietly it was almost inaudible.

Aiden was holding himself perfectly still, strained and pulled taut, ready to snap.

"What do you want from me?" he asked.

A tiny shiver went through Marcus' body, travelled through them both. Marcus laughed mirthlessly, "What I want or what I _want?" _

"Take your pick," Aiden said, turned his head a little, watched Marcus slumped form.

"I want you dead," Marcus said. "And I want to die."

Aiden saw the tension run over Marcus back and neck in the instant before he moved, before the hiss of the switchblade and lightning stab for his exposed side. Aiden caught the blade, cut his fingers on it, but wrenched it from Marcus' grip.

Marcus didn't push the attack, only winced when he agitated the bruised joint in his right shoulder. He stood away from Aiden, a step off, far enough to make another attack a bad move, for either of them. His face stood out pale in the shifting darkness, eyes too bright, like an animal caught in the headlights.

"Don't tell me about a _cure_," Marcus said with a sneer. "I looked at it, I saw harbinger, I know what it is and how it works. It's…" he shook his head. "You can't reverse it. If I'd listened to you four years ago, maybe… but now? No."

Aiden paced a few steps, kept Marcus in his sight. His expression was like stone under a layer of soot and sweat and dried blood. The wind pulled on his singed hair.

"Why won't you kill me? What's so damn hard about it?" Marcus demanded. "I bet you killed dozens just getting here and I'm sure they weren't asking for it."

Aiden said nothing. For a moment, he let himself be distracted, followed the path of a helicopter with his gaze before he returned it to Marcus. He shook his head and raked a hand through his hair.

"I don't get it," Aiden said. "Don't you want to fight? You said I could be an ally."

Marcus chortled, then broke into a laugh, cut short when he moved too hard and pain shot through his arm. He reached out with his left hand, but didn't quite dare touch the joint, standing out oddly through his shirt and jacket.

"No, that's not what I said," Marcus shook his head. "I said, if I could _choose, _but I can't. Okay? That's what I said. If you keep me alive… it's not going to stop. _I'm _not going to stop. Tonight… tonight I bombed an entire skyscraper to get to you. If you let me go, what do you think I'll do next?"

"I never said I'd let you go. Frewer…"

"Tobias Frewer has been out of the loop for decades, whatever he worked on, I'm sure he won't even recognise it anymore. He can't help me. It's been done for a long time," Marcus said. He let his head drop back and closed his eyes. "What do you even want? What do I have to do?"

"Give me a chance to fight."

"You still wanna fight?" Marcus snapped his head down, fixed on Aiden. "It's _over. _That data I gave you? You realise that was the real deal. I couldn't risk giving you a fake, you could've spotted it, turned it down. I had to… but I couldn't take all that without Blume noticing, so I had to give them something in exchange."

"DedSec," Aiden finished, more taken aback by the conclusion than he was willing to show.

Marcus nodded, "Everyone who drank from the poison chalice. But that's not the point, the point is, I looked at that stuff, too. I see where it's headed. You probably know it, too, even if you only had a glimpse."

He paused for a moment, went still to let his meaning hang in the air between them, then continued, "You can't fight it. You can't save me like that, but you _can_ save me."

He took a deep breath and it was shaky, close to a sob. He took a small step forward again, but this time Aiden shifted back and to the side, keeping the same distance between them. Marcus stopped moving instantly.

"Come on, what's it gonna take?" Marcus demanded. "Will you force me to drag more innocents into it? Your sister, perhaps?"

"You wouldn't," Aiden said darkly.

"Why not?" Marcus asked, raised his eyebrows high in mockery. "It got the job done once. Or what about that gorgeous woman you keep tabs on? Maybe I'll go find her."

Aiden had fallen into pacing, a small half-circle around Marcus, one deliberate step at a time. He glanced at Marcus, stopped pacing for half a second, then resumed.

"Do you know where Jackson is right now?" Marcus inquired. "He just moved in with a couple of friends, they think about opening a restaurant together. He's been through so much… I'm not sure how he'll handle one more trauma."

Aiden reached the end of his half circle and his expression slowly hardened as he turned around on his heels.

"Too easy," he said and came to a halt right in front of Marcus, though still out of easy reach. "If you want to manipulate me, try harder."

Marcus smiled, held out his good hand. "We both know I'm not really trying, when I really try all hell breaks loose, but I had to say it. And it's not an empty threat."

Marcus was still for another long moment, seemed to hesitate, gaze digging into Aiden's intensely. He held on to it, by force of desperation rather than willpower.

He dropped to his knees, hard on the unyielding ground, spread one hand out in supplication, still looking back at Aiden.

Aiden made a low sound in his throat, a curse he was suppressing, a sound of surprise or anger, or all of it. Or perhaps just a cough for all the smoke he'd inhaled. The muscles along his jaw tensed, strained down his neck and shoulders, before he moved. He pulled the handgun from the waistband of his jeans, took a swift step forward and pushed into Marcus' forehead so hard, the young man jerked back until he shuddered into stillness. He reached up with his hand, wrapped it around the barrel of the gun as if he was afraid Aiden would take it away again.

"One last thing," Marcus said, speaking fast now, too eager. "Take my phone. You'll want to get rid of it. Don't. _Please_, I had to… do it that way, but it'll help with… sticking it to Blume. I hacked harbinger and I changed it and… it'll not show now, because the systems aren't there yet, but sometimes I think I see the future and I know where it goes. Or maybe harbinger already did when it messed with my head. I don't know anymore. But you _have to _keep it. _Promise_ you'll keep it."

Aiden clenched his jaw, forced his teeth apart and said, "What's it going to do?"

"I can't explain," Marcus said very quietly. He flexed his fingers around the gun. "It's… I need to keep trying, you know. I'm at my limit. Pain helps… _this _helps, because an end is in sight, but… I can't do it for much longer, not while you're so damn close." He bit his lip, blinked past the gun to fix on Aiden, opened and closed his mouth, but he said nothing more.

"I promise," Aiden said, voice turned harsh and deep.

He bore Marcus' gaze, his entire body pulled tight, but he didn't move until Marcus gave an almost imperceptible nod of his head. Even then, Aiden seemed to be pulling the trigger in slow motion after another heartbeat passed, one last moment for Marcus to change his mind, or have it changed for him.

It'd be easier if he fought back, it was always easier to shoot someone in the heat of the fight than to execute them in cold blood when they were begging for it. But Marcus' body only trembled slightly from the strain, the war inside his head and the absolute certainty of the gun against him.

Aiden pulled the trigger and the gunshot echoed loudly over the empty roof. The bullet left a small hole in Marcus' forehead, scattered brain and bone fragments out behind him. His eyes were frozen open as his body slumped back and to the side, laying still without even a last shudder.

Aiden lowered the gun and stood still, looking down at him, shivering a little in the cold wind.

* * *

It took a long minute until Aiden shook back into motion and some fluidity returned to his movement. He put the gun away again and stepped close to Marcus, found his phone in the pocket of his jacket, but he didn't use it. Instead, he pulled out the woman's phone and used it to call Jordi.

"Now would be good," he said.

_"You know that place wasn't really designed with a helipad in mind?" _Jordi's voice came impatient, distorted through bad connection.

"But you can land?"

_"Yes, I can, but…" _

"Then why are we having this conversation?" Aiden interrupted irritably.

_"You can also just grow wings and fly on your own, if you prefer." _

Aiden forced himself to take a deep breath before he answered. He turned on his heels, away from Marcus' body and walked a few steps.

"Can you just get here?"

_"The things I do for you…" _Jordi said airily. _"And never a word of thanks. Or a please. Or the occasional sorry…" _

Smiling a little despite himself, Aiden said, "What do you think the extra zeroes on your pay-checks are?"

_"Reasonable?" _

He spotted one of the police helicopters fly a wide circle, diverging from whatever routine patrol it pretended to follow and head for Millennium Point.

Aiden was about to walk away, but then stopped and turned back to Marcus' corpse. He hesitated, but then walked back to him, picked his body up and carried it with him and out of the way. He put him down by the roof door he'd come from earlier. As he stood back up, his gaze passed over the gunshot hole. It seemed odd the shot had missed at this distance, even with the strong wind.

Aiden leaned his shoulder into the wall, staring down at Marcus, than pulled the young man's phone out.

It wasn't locked, but it showed only a default starting screen. He went for the menu, but before he could get there, the screen turned white, then wrote black lines across it in the same font Marcus had used to text him before.

He saw a timestamp of a few minutes earlier.

_[Fingerprints recognised. Target acquisition in progress...]_

Aiden had a sinking feeling about it. He turned and put his back flat against the wall, dismantled the phone and took the battery out, but the screen only dimmed. It must have a secondary battery and no doubt Marcus would've known to make it inaccessible without destroying the phone. Clever…

What sorts of mental stunts did you need to perform to help the man you were also trying to kill? How would you outwit your own brainwashing?

Something moved against the smog glow of the city, pitch-black and hard to focus on even when Aiden looked up. The drone hovered in the air across from him. At the edge of his vision he saw the writing on the phone change.

_[Target acquired.]_

Aiden threw himself down in the last second, then a volley of bullets ripped into the wall above him, turned a circle. He saw the drone from the corner of his eyes, adjusting its height, compensating for gusts of wind as it tracked him. He scrambled forward, leaned into the metal door and dropped through, down several steps before he caught himself, pulled himself up and went all the way down. Heat pressed up through the door there.

The firing continued above until it had torn right through the walls and metal door, raining tiny shards of plaster down on him that stung his skin.

When the firing stopped, Marcus' phone announced _[Target acquisition in progress…]_

Aiden pulled out the other phone, dialled T-Bone, but it was Frewer who answer.

"I need to jam a signal," Aiden said and flinched when he heard an explosion from the side. The drone was trying to blow out more of the floor and it made him slightly worried for the structural integrity. Millennium Point itself wasn't so badly damaged it would collapse, but this upper floor was in a much worse state. Aiden pushed his back into the wall, tried to make himself as small as he could.

_"That's… since Blume started rotating their f-frequency the old jam coms don't work…" _

"…don't work for long," Aiden finished impatiently. "They don't have to, just send the hacks."

He could actually track the progress of the drone from the angle of gunfire and the vague tremors in the walls under the impact.

He called Jordi.

_"_There's _the drone," _Jordi said. _"Vicious little thing."_

"Yeah, good news, it'll ignore you, but don't get hit by accident. Just get over here and pick me up."

_"It'll ignore me? Why?"_

"Because it's gunning for me."

_"So when I pick you up…" _

"I can jam the signal it's using to track me, but not for very long. Where are you right now?"

The drone was shutting up some parts on Aiden's left and he edged back up carefully until he reached the door. It was bent out of shape and wouldn't budge until he leaned into it with his full weight.

_"I'm here," _Jordi said and the helicopter swung into view from the side, gain some height and rotated so Aiden saw it's open door, inviting him, but he calculated the time it'd take for touchdown, how long he'd take to run over there and how quickly Jordi could take the helicopter back up.

"Stand by," Aiden told him.

By now, the drone had figured out he was back on roof height, but before it could even acquire him, Aiden ducked back into the stairway and ran down. He waited until the drone had relocated to what sounded like the other side of the skyscraper. Coming at him from above seemed the more logical choice, but the drone's construction prevented it from shooting straight down.

He found the hacks Frewer had sent. Blume's frequency upgrade had hit only a few months ago, rendering the jam coms nearly useless and Aiden hadn't yet figured out how to adapt the system. Spamming the things was an option, but not viable for long operations and this phone didn't have a whole lot of memory to do it with. He'd need to deal with the drone some more permanent way. He just hoped Jordi had brought some firepower, but he didn't think he'd have to worry about that.

He strung up the hacks, made one kick in the moment the one before failed. In his estimate, he'd get about three to four minutes out of it, plus the time the drone needed to get back around.

"Jordi?"

_"Standing by," _Jordi announced with mocking subservience.

"Ready."

_"Yeah, yeah." _

Aiden engaged the jammer, spotted the confirmation on Marcus' phone and ran up the stairs. He broke through the door, but skidded to a halt when Jordi brought the helicopter down right in front of him. Wind from the rotors beat harshly against him, kicked dust and chunks of debris up so Aiden had to shield his eyes, blinking to clear his vision.

He stashed the woman's phone in his pocket, but kept Marcus' in his hand. He wouldn't risk losing it on the run. He crossed the distance and swung himself through the open door while Jordi already took off, veered so sharply to the side Aiden was almost thrown out again. He cursed, pulled himself into a seat and strapped the seat belt on.

Jordi took the helicopter first out over the lake, then circled back while Aiden pulled the head set on to catch the tail end of a conversation Jordi had with air traffic control.

"What's wrong?" Aiden asked.

"I'm a pork chop, remember? Wasn't supposed to land. Where do we go?"

Aiden watched Marcus' phone, saw the _[Signal lost…]_ change back to _[Target acquisition in progress…]_

He could just toss the phone out the window, sink it into the lake and watch as the drone's programming made it attack a patch of water until it ran out of juice and ammo. No boats were out there tonight, everything had been locked down. There'd not be any more victims of this. Or, he could fight it out, never knowing if it was worth it, if it wasn't just some elaborate trap dreamed up by Marcus in his insanity.

"We need to take the drone down," Aiden said.

"I just knew you'd say that," Jordi sighed. "There's a SMR-501 for you."

A metal box, set into the floor below the seat contained the rifle and a stack of magazines.

"The drone can't fire straight down or up," Aiden said while he set up with the rifle. "It's lighter than we are and somewhat more manoeuvrable, but it doesn't do so well with high winds."

"Yeah, I got it," Jordi said. "I fly, you shoot, no hand-holding."

Jordi brought the helicopter around so the dark of the lake was behind him and Aiden could make out the black drone moving against the backdrop of the city lights. The laser sight of the SMR-501 glinted on the chitinous bulk of the drone and Aiden scanned it for weak spots through the scope.

A moment before the drone opened fire, Jordi let the helicopter drop down and brought it around in a tight circle while the drone tried to follow. Aiden took aim again, though the helicopter shuddered under the strain of Jordi's evasive manoeuvres. Once the drone was back in his crosshairs, Aiden fired. He wasted no time on aiming more than in the general direction of the thing. He hadn't spotted any obvious weaknesses, his best bet seemed to be to just do as much damage as possible to the thing and maybe get lucky at some point.

The drone seemed to be running some kind of AI, giving it enough idea of strategy to do a bit more than just blindly firing at the source of the signal. Some of its maneuvres were unexpectedly clever and difficult to anticipate. Aiden leaned into the seat belt, half hanging outside the open door when Jordi took the helicopter into a steep upward arch to try and bring the drone below them. Aiden's shots punched into the drone's chassis. He must have hit something, because the drone let itself fall down further, seemed almost confused. Aiden shot again, saw the drone shudder, but then it dipped away to the side and out of Aiden's firing line. Only a moment later it gained height on the other side and drew level with them for the first time.

Aiden brought the rifle around and fired again, two shots at close enough quarter he heard the impacts and saw the thin line of white smoke in the darkness. But the drone had charged up its cannons and opened fire, the bullet hissed through the open doors of the helicopter, left some holes in the roof and floor. Through the headset, he heard some alarms go off and Jordi curse in Chinese and English, but the helicopter remained steady when Jordi accelerated forward and climbed, flew a wider circle this time to get some more distance.

Both the helicopter and the drone wove through a series of movements above the lake. The further out they got, the worse the winds were — Aiden had them beat in his face relentless, almost ruining his vision — the less steady the drone seemed.

Abruptly, Jordi slowed down and swerved to the side while the drone still tried to follow the move, bringing it right back in front of Aiden's scope. He aimed a little lower this time, in a moment where their speeds had aligned. The laser traced the bulk of the drone, but the round he fired hit just above one of the rotary cannons. Another shot hit almost the same spot, then the drone managed to evade to the side.

"Do that again!" Aiden demanded.

"All you've got to do is ask," Jordi announced, sounded like he had the time of his life. "And move your flabby ass to the other side."

Aiden turned, while Jordi performed a similar dance with the drone. "You did _not _just say that to me."

Jordi chuckled.

The laser found the drone again and this time the rounds were strong enough to damage the cannon, beating it loose from its sockets, rendering it harmless. More than that, it seemed to throw the drone's balance off kilter.

"Just so you know," Jordi said and sounded slightly more serious. "We aren't doing so well ourselves. This chopper isn't made for what I'm making it do. How much longer is it going to take?"

Aiden ejected the spent magazine, jammed a new one in and fired the round into the belly of the drone as Jordi took the helicopter down and past.

"Keep it in sight and I'll down in."

The drone was trailing smoke, badly visible in the darkness, but dispersing the laser when it travelled through it. Aiden shot again and a small explosion followed, tiny bits of flames shooting out from the puncture.

The drone gained height again, higher than it had done before and back. For a moment it almost looked like it would retreat, but the it suddenly dropped low and sped up until it was right below them.

Aiden leaned out over the side, watched the drone swaying. It kept tilting back and the manoeuvre didn't seem to be making any sense, because it kept tipping. It didn't abort even when Aiden shot it twice.

"Shit," he said when he realised what was happening, but he didn't have time to get more of a warning out. The drone wasn't designed to fly in that position, it couldn't. It had tipped too far and fell like a stone, but it still had one functional cannon and it opened fire, tearing through the helicopter from below. A shot seared past Aiden's leg, another cut open his cheek from below. He heard Jordi make an oddly surprised sound over more alarms going off. Something was burning.

Jordi accelerated the helicopter forward, out of range of the drone as it dropped into the lake.

The helicopter lurched, unsteadily, but finally swung around and began heading for the shore.

Marcus' phone said _[Congrats.]_

"The cops must have been bought off," Aiden mused, let his head drap back and allowed himself a moment to relax. He stashed the SMR-501 back into its box. "Can't imagine them stand back and watch an UCAV shoot down one of their own."

"Pearce…"

"What did you tell them anyway?"

"_Pearce_…"

Aiden tensed at Jordi's tone, loosened the seat belt enough so he could turn and lean into the cockpit. Some smoke coiled there, but he spotted no really bad damage to the cockpit itself.

Jordi had sagged in his seat.

"Ah, fuck," Aiden said when he saw the blood Jordi had coughed up. The fixer turned his head toward him, gloved fingers slowly falling away from the controls.

He said, "I hope you can fly this thing."

"Not very well," Aiden muttered as he got out of the seat belt and climbed into the seat beside Jordi.

"What a downer ending," Jordi commented, he coughed up more blood and his head lolled back.

Aiden scanned the controls, trying to assess what other damage it had down, but all readings seemed acceptable, if not ideal. He sped up, but he felt the resistance and slowed back down. If he didn't want the machine to fall apart under him, he'd better pace himself.

"Jordi," he said, cuffed the fixer in the arm when he didn't answer. Jordi stirred, groaned wetly.

"Round got through your body armour, didn't it?" Aiden continued. "You just keep breathing, try not to pass out."

* * *

Holy Cross Hospital was located on southern end of the Loop, well beyond what the cops had blocked off around Millennium Point. The survivors from Millennium Point would have been brought into hospitals that lay closer, making Holy Cross a better choice. It didn't make much difference in terms of time or distance, but Aiden didn't think he could save Jordi by landing in the middle of a police blockade. The hospital's helipad was occupied, so Aiden brought the helicopter around and landed on the parking lot outside the ER instead. There was not enough space there, but he paid it no heed, just picked the largest empty spot and took the helicopter down. It's rotor blades chopped at the trees along the sides, scratched and bent parked cars. He crushed the hood of a car under a skid and the helicopter dipped badly to the side, dropped inelegantly the rest of the way.

Jordi grunted at the rough landing and Aiden took it as a good sign, at least he was still alive.

Aiden killed the engine and climbed out, tossed the headset away and dragged Jordi from his seat, slung him over his shoulder, then hoisted him over his back to easier carry him.

The hospital had clearly been placed on alert, but didn't seem to have much more than normal midnight traffic.

His little stunt hadn't gone unnoticed, of course and the people in the ER turned wide-eyes on him as he marched in, waiting patients, doctors and nurses all equally dumbstruck for a long moment. A trail of bloody spit ran down over his shoulder, more on the floor, Jordi's blood and his own, dragging soot from the fire, leaving a dirty trail from the doors to the gurney. Aiden pulled Jordi down and laid him on the gurney.

He stepped back, found and held the gaze of the first doctor that came into his field of vision. A tall, silver-haired woman, holding heresy with some poise. It was irritating not to know her name and even her name tag was covered by the fall of her pristine collar.

"Damaged lung," Aiden explained. "Gunshot. About ten minutes ago."

The doctor held his gaze, clearly petrified, but then her gaze dropped away from Aiden and to the man on the gurney and she seemed to shed her skin, drop her fear like something she no longer needed. She gave a nearly imperceptible nod toward Aiden when she stepped forward. With her movement, the spell broke in the people around her. Another doctor rushed forward, followed by some nurses.

Aiden gave them their space, but lingered perhaps longer than he should have, trying to think clearly. Jordi wouldn't like this, but he'd like being dead even less. And Jordi, for all his track-record, Jordi wasn't high-profile and he knew how to get out of sticky situations. He'd talk the cops' ear off, they couldn't jail him while he was in such a bad state and escaping from a hospital would be one of Jordi's easier tricks.

Aiden couldn't stay. He felt the scrutiny of another nurse and under his gaze, he became acutely aware of his own battered state. For the first time in hours he was standing still, without any clear direction and he felt the adrenaline drain from him all at once. He'd collapse if he stayed even a second longer.

He forced himself to move, turn away and walk back to the door.

A security guard stood there, moved to block his path with a hand on the taser on his hip, but he seemed lost and he hadn't drawn the taser, either.

Aiden stopped and did nothing else. Just stood there and looked back at the man, waited, felt how blank his expression was and how unfocussed his stare. He didn't know what the guard saw, he didn't even know how long they stood there. All Aiden could think of was that he wasn't sure if he could take him out, if the guard really tested him.

The guard saw something else. Very slowly, he took the hand away from the taser, then lifted both hands over his head and took several careful steps back.

_Move, _Aiden thought, but was momentarily puzzled by how it was done. He found himself walking without much conscious thought, one foot before the other, a sharp sting in both his legs. He was aware of the blood that had collected in his boots.

He walked out, didn't stop once he was past the door in case he forgot how to keep going. He looked at the helicopter, but he couldn't even begin to guess what damage the vehicle had sustained, even before that landing.

He should take a car, _any _car, from the parking lot, there had to be some old enough he could hot wire them by hand, but the bright lights repelled him, so he turned to the right instead and followed the outline of the hospital until he reached a narrow stretch of grass and a wall low enough he could simply step over it.

A street led into a tunnel a few yards on his left. There was some traffic here, but not much of it. Cops must have tried locking down the entire city, not just Mad Mile, or maybe people just stayed home on their own.

Aiden followed the street toward the tunnel, until from one moment to the next, even another step seemed too much.

He leaned into the wall, felt the solidity of concrete at his back, freezing cold on his feverish skin. It was abrasive and it scratched as he slipped down on it. He came to sit on the two phones, the handgun and the screwdriver. He pulled the phones up, stared at Marcus' for a long time. It's screen had turned off. Slowly, he pulled up the other one, his fingers felt like lead as he typed and moved like pushing through water. He pressed it into his ear and listened to the ringing.

_"Screaming jesus on a ferris wheel! Aiden, where are you?" _T-Bone's voice tore him back into reality. Into the cold of the street, the stink of trash and urine around him.

Aiden looked up, stared at the buildings across the street and found nothing familiar there. He looked up and down, but spotted no sign that'd help him orient himself.

"Don't know," he said. "Near Holy Cross hospital. Just ping me."

_"Alright, I see you," _T-Bone announced after a moment of blissful silence. _"Just hang in there, I'll get you." _

T-Bone seemed to be in a car already, the chatter of a radio in the background, noise of traffic and the distant humming of an engine. Aiden listened to it, concentrated on the tiny pieces of sound filtering through. He pulled his legs up and let his head drop to a knee, taking some of the strain off his neck.

_"What the hell happened?" _T-Bone asked.

"Not sure where to start," Aiden said, but wasn't sure it came out audible.

_"DedSec? Looks a bit too hands-on for them…"_

"DedSec's gone," Aiden interrupted. "Marcus sold them out to Blume to get to me."

_"Marcus…?" _

"Brenks."

_"Nothing good ever comes out of that name," _T-Bone growled. _"So Blume attacked Millennium Point? Was it Corporate Police?" _

"I'm not sure they were Corporate Police, seemed more like mercenaries, paramilitary types," Aiden said, though he thought his tongue was too thick to keep going. "T-Bone… it's a mess. I can't explain it right now."

_"Sure, you just hold out,_" T-Bone made a good attempt at sounding unconcerned when he was anything but. Silence dropped like the lid on a coffin and Aiden listened to his own breathing and T-Bone's through the phone.

The phone began to slip, jolting Aiden back awake, he pulled tight before it dropped.

T-Bone said, _"I'm listening to the news here. You landed a chopper in front of the hospital?" _

"Did."

_"Maybe you should find yourself another outlet," _T-Bone suggested with weak humour.

Aiden let it roll over him, too tired to be muster a reaction. The cold of the wall was seeping through his skin and muscles, right into his bones.

_"Ever thought of bowling?" _T-Bone inquired.

"You don't have to keep me talking," Aiden pointed out. "I'm not dying here. Just tired. Been the longest day I remember."

_"Are you sure? Because if I thought you'd listen, I'd send you right back into that hospital." _

"I'd never walk out again," Aiden said. "We both know that."

_"Shit, yes, we do," _T-Bone conceded after a pause. _"But it gets worse from here, buddy. You can't stay there. Police are searching the perimeter of the hospital. You need to get out of dodge." _

Aiden lifted his head up and sucked in the night-air, it smelled of damp asphalt and gunmetal, a hint of blood, spilled gasoline.

_"Aiden…" _T-Bone's voice again, dragging him back.

"I got it," Aiden said through clenched teeth, it felt like a snarl in his throat, but came out wheezing. He sucked in another gulp of air, still didn't seem to be getting enough, but it would have to do.

_"You just keep moving, I'll make sure they stay off your track." _

Aiden braced himself, then pushed back into the wall and slowly upward. The concrete was just as resistant as it had been going down, perhaps it ripped open some already closed wound, some of the blisters he didn't really feel yet.

He straightened away from the wall, glanced up the street a last time, but headed for the tunnel.

In the distance, the first sirens made themselves heard, already closing in on him.

* * *

_End of _Firewalker – Part 3_

* * *

**References:**

The (fictional) SMR-501 is the 2020s version of the (existent) SR-25 sniper rifle the cops use in-game.

T-Bone quotes video games when he's agitated.

* * *

**Author's Note: **I originally wanted an epic fight between Marcus and Aiden, but I think this is better. Aiden did enough fighting for one story and Marcus… Marcus is barely coherent anymore anyway. I really wish it wouldn't have been like that, but I've got to be honest about these things. I love the guy, by the way, and I think I'll write him his own chapter. Dive deeper into that madness, but I still need to figure out how to approach it.

The character death warning is for Marcus. However, I also don't feel very confident about Jordi…

I don't know if Firewalker will have a forth chapter or not. Give me some time to mull it over. Let me know if it's too confusing!


	38. Firewalker – Epilogue

**Author's Note:** I did kind of write myself into a corner. I didn't really want a fixed continuity within Brilliancy, but now there are so many stories and I'm coming up against Quaint Old World. I need to convince Aiden to wuss out and go hide for ten years, considering the somewhat symbiotic relationship I have with my lead, that's not as easy as it sounds.

Marcus' phone's contents will be explained in time.

* * *

**_Firewalker – Epilogue**

* * *

Aiden wasn't sure if he'd been asleep or in a coma. He certainly felt like he'd been out cold for some indeterminable amount of time. When he woke up, he found himself lying on top of the blankets in a strange bed. Someone had thrown a heavy quilt over him and his body ached when he rolled to his back and stared at the low ceiling, followed the pipes with his gaze and let his mind running idle.

He had been lucky. The cops had already been stretched too thin over the disaster at Millennium Point, kept in the dark about what was really going on by their colleagues at Blume, they hadn't managed to come down fast enough around Holy Cross and he'd managed to slip away. T-Bone had done the rest, manufactured some 911 calls that got most of them to move the other way, cleared enough room for him to pick Aiden up.

In the chaos, not even a mob doctor was available to patch Aiden together so Frewer had done the stitches and not half-bad, too, all things considered. Even now, Aiden smelled the disinfectant on his skin, mixed with the scent of the salve on the burns. Everything stung and ached and hurt. If he never had to move again, he'd be just fine, but he was just coming down hard after all of it. It'd pass with a couple more hours of sleep and a handful of painkillers.

T-Bone and Frewer were talking in an adjoining room, but they weren't loud enough to understand. What came through clearly, though, was the television.

_"…last night a series of explosions shook the Millennium Point building in Mad Mile. While the cause is still not entirely certain, authorities suspect a gas leak which ignited and climbed through the pipes into other floors. Why the safeties were offline is still unknown. Blume has so far merely said they are investigating the issue, but they think a hacker attack might be possible, though no city structure has been hacked on this scale since ctOS 2.0 went online ten years ago. _

_At this time, most people have been evacuated from the building, but firefighters are still searching the upper floors, which suffered the worst damage. However, the building is currently considered stable and most fires have been extinguished. _

_Unfortunately, so far the incident has caused eleven dead and serious injuries number among the hundreds among tenants and emergency crews. _

_It also seems that confusion has caused some strange stories to spring up. Eyewitnesses claim to have seen armed men and even a drone, however, CPD has so far not confirmed their claim, a spokesman has pointed out that people are often confused in such circumstances. We'll have the full story for you in half an hour only on WKZ. In the meantime the news. We are starting with good news for the stock market: Blume's acquisition of Uplink, a social media company, has given both companies' rates a significant boost…"_

Aiden pushed himself up, groaned at the jarring pain in all the muscles of his body, resisting even that small movement. Bandages and band-aids strained all over his body. He rubbed a hand down his face, tried flexing his shoulders and neck, but it didn't help much. Taking a breath to steel himself, he forced himself to stand and padded bare-feet to the door, stopped there to lean into the doorway and wait for his eyes to adjust.

Across the room, a massive rig of staked servers and computer screens occupied the entire wall. Some of them filled with surveillance feeds, others ran lines of data, some were darkened. Bits and pieces of electronic equipment littered the entire room.

An old couch stood in front of a television and a few metal crates served as tables in front of it, laden with takeaway boxes and several wired up tablets and laptops.

T-Bone and Frewer sat on the couch, eating, both looked up when he walked in.

"Thanks," Aiden said.

"You're welcome," T-Bone grinned, but his expression fell immediately. "We puzzled it together."

"Really?"

"Are you hungry?" Frewer asked. "You… uh… you look really bad."

Aiden arched his brows and said nothing, shook his head. "What do you think happened?"

T-Bone waved with a plastic fork, then dipped it back in the box to retrieve a chunk of curried chicken. "Feel free to chime in with whatever other information you have…"

Aiden shook his head, interrupted, "Marcus Brenks was brainwashed by a variant of bellwether into hunting me down. He… I don't know. I think he snapped and hatched some kind of plan to trick Blume or… maybe to trick me. He'd struck a deal with Blume, gave them DedSec in exchange for the data."

"Two for the price of one," T-Bone remarked.

Frewer frowned. "Why him? Uh, you? I mean… Blume has been going after Ray and me for years, why… you know, all of it?" he paused. "Don't get me wrong. Not… not envious or anything."

Aiden smiled darkly. "The difference is, I kick up a lot of dirt. That's a lot of potential targets for harbinger to manipulate. You two are doing a much better job of keeping out of the news. There are…" He hesitated, closed his eyes for only a moment. "I give a lot of people a reason to hate me."

Frewer's gaze flitted away from Aiden, down into his food, then around the room as if looking for something to settle on. "I t-told you not to carry a gun," he said finally.

Aiden snorted and turned away from them, looked around the room then shook into motion with some effort. He stalked across the room to an overladen shelf. It contained printouts and disemboweled computers, but one compartment had been reserved for a nice collection of bottles and a stack of shot glasses.

"Yeah," Aiden said. "It's good advice."

"Ain't the end of it," T-Bone said. "Most of our DedSec contacts have gone silent in the last few hours. The news gets sidelined, of course, but Corporate Police have raided all sorts of places all across the country. Looks like most of DedSec's being pulled out by the roots."

His expression darkened, when he added, "That Brenks boy certainly doesn't do things by halves."

"He was completely insane," Aiden said as he picked out one of the bottles and took three of the shot glasses with him, carried everything back to the crates and set it down. He cleared some space on another crate to sit down on before he opened the bottle. "He didn't deserve what Blume did to him."

"N-No one does," Frewer said quietly.

Aiden didn't look at him, focused on pouring a glass.

"Have you looked at Marcus' phone?"

"No," T-Bone answer, glanced across the room to the desk, where Marcus' phone lay in a meshed box, keeping it isolated. "I thought you'd want a go at it first."

Aiden shrugged. "Actually, if it's booby-trapped, it's more likely to react to me, you should be save."

T-Bone nodded, "I'll look it over later. Can't wait to see what that screwball's cooked up."

Aiden emptied his glass, set it back down with a low chink.

Frewer said, "Something m-more is going on."

"More?" Aiden asked.

"Worse," T-Bone corrected with a grimace.

"_Worse_?"

"Hard to believe, don't even say it," T-Bone growled. "But all kinds of shit are going down on a _global _scale. Blume ain't got the overblown rights they do here in the rest of the world, but they still have enough pull. It looks like they've got authorities to move against hackers everywhere. Whole patches of the Darknet are going quiet."

Aiden downed another shot, set the glass back down and refilled it.

"How much of the data do we still have?" Aiden asked.

"Not much," T-Bone said and sighed. "It phoned home, cracked my network wide open and some script kiddie at Blume's had his fingers all over it. Made a right mess of things, too."

"The data's the key," Aiden said. "If we can reconstruct it, we stand a chance."

He looked from one to the other, then took a deep breath when he saw the truth of it in their expressions. "So that's how it's gonna be," he concluded, more to himself.

Frewer glanced at T-Bone, then said, "M-maybe…but the data is really badly damaged. It won't be a l-lot."

"Or we move in on Blume," T-Bone said. "Get a clean copy."

"If I were Blume I'd use the chance to clean house," Aiden shook his head. "Everyone they don't trust, they can just blame them for the malfunctions in Millennium Point tonight… _last _night… and fire them for it. Gets rid of all DedSec sympathisers and wannabe whistleblowers, too. Everyone with a weakness we can exploit."

He looked at the television screen, where the weather forecast chattered along happily about sunny spring weather and cloudless sky. In the ticker below it said: _Vigilante involved in Millennium Point disaster?_ They were already starting the blame-game, it seemed.

"They can hide a lot of controversial moves, this'll take the headlines for at least a week."

T-Bone put his food down and threw himself back on the couch.

"There's got to be a way," he said. "I came too far just to go down now."

"The thing is," Aiden said slowly as he poured himself another glass. "We have a few more months of access, before Blume is ready to go. Maybe more, if their proposed legislation sparks some controversy."

"Gives us time," T-Bone mused. "Find some chink in their armour. I like the idea."

Aiden shook his head. "No," he said, put the glass to his lips, but hesitated. "That's not… well, I guess you could try. But I'm thinking it's the last chance to get out of it."

"What do you mean?" T-Bone asked, but he already knew, it was obvious enough.

Frewer swallowed hard on some badly chewed piece in his mouth, blinking rapidly. His gaze skittered between Aiden and T-Bone, but he said nothing.

Aiden suppressed a tired sigh. "We've always known it was gonna happen. And we've always known we were on the losing side. We still have our access, not to Blume directly, but the whole country still runs on their old software. That's an exit strategy. I'll use it. You can do what you want, of course."

Frewer cleared his throat with some effort, lowered the box in his hand and said, "Do you… uh, maybe you should… sleep on it?"

Aiden laughed dryly and drank again.

"I hate to say it," T-Bone said. "But that sounds like a damn good idea."

Aiden dropped the hand with the glass, stared T-Bone down for a long moment. "We don't get out now, we'll be _taken_ out."

He could tell he wasn't being convincing and it took him a long minute until he mustered enough energy to care. But he owed T-Bone as much, he owed Frewer. They'd pulled him from the fire often enough.

"Look at it," he explained. "Maybe we can track down some Blume secretary with an animal porn collection or a gambling problem and we put the thumbscrews on them. Let's pretend that's enough to get us back in. And then? What's the next move?"

"Do _you _want to let Blume keep playing with brainwashing software?" T-Bone asked sharply.

"No," Aiden said, stared off into space and thought of Marcus. It was too late now, but he couldn't stop wondering if there had ever existed some way to save him. "But they've had it for decades and I'm sure they've been using it. Made no difference that I was there, or the two of you, or even DedSec. I'm not seeing how it'd make a difference if we aren't there."

"That's your point?" T-Bone asked, sounding irritated. "You got burned once and now you've lost your taste for it?"

"If that's what you want to think," Aiden offered with a shrug.

"No, it's not _what I want to think," _T-Bone snapped.

Aiden said. "You went into hiding before." He looked at Frewer. "Both of you."

"Ain't the best time in my life," T-Bone growled, but he seemed to have already spent his energy and his expression had become pensive even before he finished speaking. He could see the truth as well as Aiden, perhaps even clearer. He knew more about Blume and he'd probably had some more time to look at the data before it went up in smoke.

T-Bone put his chin forward. "Are you ever going to share that mezcal or do you plan to kill the bottle alone?"

Aiden allowed himself a quick smirk, but it was gone by the time he had filled the other glasses and handed them over.

"I don't d-drink that," Frewer said.

"Once won't kill you," T-Bone said, gave a dismissive wave with one hand.

T-Bone studied Aiden for a long time. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"Know when you're beaten," Aiden said. He tipped his glass at the other two.

The television started showing aerial footage of Millennium Point and the deep scars the drone attack and the gas explosions had left on it. The upper floors seemed to have collapsed and it was still burning, sheathed the building in thick smoke, black and dirty even in the soft afternoon light.

It was, come to think of it, a pretty good representation of their situation and how it was going to end. Aiden had seen only very little of what Blume had planned, but it was more than enough. Praeterea would close all the old doors and Blume had the power to force whatever legislation they wanted. If all else failed, they could just loosen bellwether on a few senators and justices, provided they didn't have the necessary dirt on them already. They were taking the grey places away, in the real world and online. Twenty years ago, Aiden would have laughed at the thought. He'd grown up with an internet that was inherently anarchistic and uncontrollable, a playground for all variations of predators. He'd never expected it all to become so defenceless.

The mezcal tasted of smoke, too.

"Cheers," T-Bone said and made it sound like a eulogy.

* * *

_End of _Firewalker_

* * *

**Reference: **

Uplink: a shareware hacking game by Ambrosia Software. I suck so much at it you wouldn't believe… but it's also kind of fun.


	39. Traps, Pitfalls and Swindles

[summary: The first game Aiden and Damien ever played]

[takes place in 2002]

**_Traps, Pitfalls and Swindles**

* * *

Due to the weather conditions, fresh air had been postponed and the inmates recreational hour took place in the somewhat more crammed indoors while the rain beat against the barred windows with ferocity. Sometimes lightning would cut across the sky, closely followed by the beating of thunder. It was almost loud enough to drone out the noise of too many men hanging around, trying very hard not to do something stupid while they were bored.

Sitting on his own, Damien looked up from the chessboard in front of him and cast a slow gaze around. There weren't a lot of really dangerous people on this level with him, just small-time criminals with not enough bite to get into serious shit, guys runnings scams, tax fraud, most of them crossed out, too. No one you really had to worry about if you kept an eye on your wallet. Of course, there was the occasional bigger fish around. Guys who couldn't be convicted for the mass murdering they usually did, but were dumb enough be caught driving high as a kite.

Damien sighed, looked back at the chessboard and contemplated his next move. For his part, his sentence was almost halfway up and he'd settled in well enough, keeping to himself but not antagonising anyone, being polite to the guards. He'd even got a job down in the prison's library, although 'library' was a somewhat hopeful term. They used an ancient computer to organise the place and Damien had been lucky enough to be present when the geriatric machine had hiccuped. He'd very politely offered to help, a guard had recommended him and a mere three weeks later all the paperwork had gone through.

At least it gave him something to do, even if it involved coding text-based adventures in WordPad to at least pretend to keep his wits sharp. Internet access would've been too much to ask for.

A shadow fell across his table and Damien sighed again.

"You are in my light," he said and only then deigned to look up. He rolled his eyes. Not another knuckle-dragger, please? Because at least the scammers had the occasional funny story to tell, but this guy? If Damien had to hear one more old chestnut involving someone's 'bitches' he was… well, he wasn't ruining his chances of checking out of this shit-hole early, but he'd certainly feel tempted.

The young man watched him thoughtfully, then smiled a little and swung a leg over the bench to sit down.

He said, "Oh, sorry."

He didn't sound like he meant it, but it was enough for Damien to at least look him over a second time. A young man, mid-twenties at Damien's guess, built like a thug, muscled less for show and more for hurting people, but he looked a bit worn around the edges. Damien saw recently healed scars on his scalp through the short-cropped hair, but no other signs of damage.

"Do you play?" the young man asked, made a small gesture at the board with a long-boned hand.

"You're new, right?" Damien said. "It's okay if you don't know it, but I only talk to people after the big guys have broken them in. I don't have the patience to teach you manners myself."

The young man contemplated him, folded his arms deftly on the edge of the table and leaned in a little. He arched a dark brow. "So _do_ you play? Or are you just moving the pieces around?"

Damien smoothed his expression into something vaguely scandalised to cover the fact that his interest had been piqued. Didn't mean he had to show his hand, even if that was a different game.

He let the young man hang there for a long minute, just to see if he even had the patience to last, but he only looked back at Damien steadily and with enough arrogant confidence in his slight smile Damien felt it was a public service to teach this little pretender a thing or two.

Dismissively, Damien took his gaze away from him and looked down at the board as if he wanted to memorise the position he'd reached playing against himself. Only then did he reach out and put the pieces back into their starting positions, one after the other, perfectly aligned in the centre of their squares. As a final touch, Damien put his fingers to the side of the board and swivelled it so his challenger was facing the white side.

He looked up, gave a toothy grin and said, "Your move."

What followed was a war of annihilation. Damien made a handful of bad mistakes in the beginning, before he finally swallowed his pride and accepted that his opponent at least knew what he was doing. After that, Damien really focussed on the game, outgunned and cornered his opponent until he was down to a last pawn and his queen.

Despite that, Damien was having a sinking feeling about where it was going. He'd been watching the man across the board and rather than swagger through like Damien had expected, he actually seemed to approach it with a certain earnestness.

"Careful there," Damien reminded him gently. "People could think you're actually enjoying yourself."

"They'd be right," the other shrugged, stared at the board as if his position would somehow improve if he just glared at it long enough.

"Enjoy getting beaten, do you?"

"Not as much as you'd think," he said, looked up and grinned briefly. "I'm strange like that."

"I can see that," Damien commented. "You've been fingering the queen for five minutes by now. Maybe that's enough foreplay for one move?"

"Agreed," he said and took the piece between his fingers, moved it across the board and set it down right in front of Damien's king. "Check," he added and sounded quite pleased with himself.

"Yes, but can you take it home?" Damien asked.

The other leaned back from the board, let his gaze travel over it and then up at Damien, holding his gaze. "No, but that makes two of us."

He waved his hand in mocking invitation.

"Your move."

Damien looked at the board, but he'd already mapped it in his head and knew exactly what this position meant. A bell signalled the end of recreation time and the inmates slowly started congealing at the exits, heading for the mess hall.

Damien sighed dramatically and sat back. "Finish tomorrow?" he asked, still clinging to the hope his opponent had just accidentally blundered into the position and didn't know what he had.

His opponent tilted his head, smirked a little. "Finish right now," he said. "It's only one move left. But you do get to pick that one. After that, it's a stalemate."

Damien snorted and started packing up the pieces and the board under the baleful stare of a guard, they'd already hung around too long.

"I got to wonder, though," Damien said as they made their way through the hallway. "Didn't you play to win?"

The other shrugged. "Of course I played to win, but when it wasn't working, I played not to lose."

Damien arched his brows, somewhat more captivated by his new chess partner than he'd expected. It was putting him in a surprisingly good mood.

He said, "Just stick with me, son, I'll teach you the ropes."

He slung an arm around the other man's shoulders, somewhat condescendingly, but not unkindly. He was entirely prepared to risk his arm, too, you never knew who'd snap if you touched them without permission around here, but Damien had a good feeling about it.

The other laughed dryly, but didn't get the chance to answer, because someone behind said, "Hey, I think the nerd has finally found someone!"

Damien frowned. He didn't know he had acquired a nickname. He guessed it could be worse, but he wasn't exactly thrilled, either, since it meant he wasn't moving under the radar as much as he'd hoped. He glanced back and spotted the man who'd spoken and it almost immediately ruined his mood. One of the gang-banger sorted into the wrong cell tract. This guy had been making some noise since he'd arrived a week ago. Both Damien and his chess-partner were almost a head taller than the 'banger, but the man was broad and imposing nevertheless. He had the kind of face you really wanted to beat up on, too, especially while he was wearing _that _expression.

"So," the man went on with a leer, "which one is the girl?"

By then, Damien had already used every conceivable witty comeback for that question and it just wasn't worth the effort anymore. He was entirely prepared to let the man off easy, giving him nothing but an arrogant grin and a careless dismissal.

His chess partner had other ideas. Damien watched him slow down, then take a half step to the side, out of Damien's loose grip, glance up and down the hallway in an instant. After that, it happened too fast for Damien to follow. It happened too fast for the 'banger, too, considering the sort of choked sound of surprise he made when he suddenly found himself ran face first into the bars of a cell along the corridor, one hand twisted painfully on his back and Damien's chess partner leaning in hard behind him, keeping him pinned.

"I didn't catch that," Damien's chess partner hissed, holding the 'banger with no apparent effort even when the man tried to struggle. "Maybe run it by me again?"

Some of the other inmates had stopped to watch the spectacle and Damien could already see the commotion spreading out in the lines behind them like a shockwave.

The gang-banger's strained, "uh nothing" came almost simultaneously with a guard yelling "what's going on?" further down.

Damien's chess partner seemed unimpressed, held on for long enough to make his point, then eased up and put the other man back on his feet, made a show of smoothing down the man's shirt.

Damien pulled in his breath sharply, drawing attention. "Maybe we should keep moving?" he suggested.

"Yeah," his chess partner agreed and fell back into the same bored stride he'd had before, as if nothing had happened. The 'banger had enough sense not to press his luck there and then, sorted himself into the line somewhere further behind, hopefully he wasn't just biding his time.

"You realise you've just answered his question anyway, do you?" Damien inquired.

"Well, if you _mind, _I'll create a distraction and you can set him straight," the other said, pointed with his chin. "He's just over there."

They were queuing at the food counter and Damien leaned out of the line to spot the other man. He pretended to think about it, but then shook his head.

"Nah, not worth it," he decided. "He'll just drag me down to his level."

"So what is it?"

"What?"

"Your last move."

Damien got distracted by a shovel full of… mashed potatoes? Gravy?… being lumped on his plate. He'd been seeing these sorts of things on television for most of his life and always assumed it was an exaggeration, but jail food really didn't have a lot going for it.

"King to g7," he said. "So now you have one pawn left. Congratulations. I win."

"It's not a checkmate, so it's not a win."

"It will be," Damien assured him. "If you have the balls to play again tomorrow."

The other man smiled as he put his tray down on the table and slid in the empty seat.

He said, "You're on."

#

They played to a long series of draws. Threefold repetition. A ridiculous number of stalemates. They played _way _past fifty moves and had to continue verbally over dinner. Insufficient material, Damien's opponent loved that one. It took Damien a week before he finally managed to checkmate his opponent and it was entirely impossible to hide his mirth when it happened.

"The world's right again," Damien said, grinning. "I was getting worried."

The weather had changed, so the inmates were being aired out in the yard under sunlight, almost bright enough to sting the eyes.

"I know," the other said, unconcerned over his loss.

"Not enough time for another game," he added and swivelled in his seat, leaned his elbows on the table and leaned back, face to the sun.

Damien studied him while he had the freedom to do so without being observed in turn. He only saw his profile like this, a long nose and pointed chin, unrefined features without much subtlety, certainly nothing to suggest he could think strategy the way he did.

"What are you in for?" he asked.

A slow grin spread across the other man's face at some private joke. Damien thought he knew the nature of it already. No one around here served sentences longer than a year and for mostly harmless things. This man, Damien was sure, had a lot more dirt going on.

"Computer tampering."

Damien laughed, he couldn't help himself.

"Are you sure?" he asked, still laughing. "You certainly don't look the part."

"The judge seemed pretty sure."

"What sort of tampering?"

The other man cracked an eye open and turned it on Damien, giving him a very critical look.

"Professional curiosity?" he asked.

"Why, yes," Damien said. "You see, I'm beginning to think this could be the start of a beautiful friendship."

The man opened both eyes and turned his head, faced Damien, his expression set in a relaxed mask that could be hiding any number of homicidal thoughts.

"Uhm…" someone said and they both turned to face the newcomer.

Damien rolled his eyes when he recognised the gang-banger from a few days before, but he didn't look like he planned to make trouble. He was standing a polite few feet away, decidedly unthreatening in the way any wild animal would. If he had a tail, he'd have been wagging it hopefully.

It was all Damien could do not to show his amusement and ruin the show in the process. He was an outsider, but his partner had a clear grasp on what he was doing, playing right along as if he'd been waiting for just this thing.

"Sorry," the man said. "The thing… you know, the other day? I meant no offence."

"Nothing happened," Damien's partner assured him with a shrug and the gang-banger pulled a pack of cigarettes out.

"You want?" the gang-banger asked, holding out the packet.

Damien's partner hesitated, considering the worth of the offer, but then nodded, took the cigarette and put it between his lips.

"Fire?" he asked and the 'banger immediately pulled out a battered looking lighter, it took a few tries before it sparked. He lit up and hung around while Damien's partner took a few long drags.

"I'm Trent," the gang-banger said and earned himself a cool half-smile which nevertheless seemed to relax. He added, "If you need anything else, I got connections, you know."

Damien's partner nodded slowly, kept smiling and smoking. "Sure," he said. "Trent, right?"

When Trent had finally withdrawn with a certain deference, Damien said, "Would you look at that. You're starting to built a fan-club."

"It's not rocket science," he waved it off. "But don't worry, you've got seniority."

Damien snorted, but let it go anyway. He'd just checkmated the man, no need to be petty about such things.

"I got owned for extortion," Damien offered after another moment of silence. "_Attempted _extortion, even. Stupid mistake, and I don't really _make_ mistakes."

"You're a tech geek of some kind," the other said. Since Trent was gone, he'd settled his hand on the edge of the table, cigarette smoke curling up lazily between them. "Greed got the better of you, didn't it? But you didn't know how to play."

"Lucky guess," Damien accused, though he couldn't quite decide if he was impressed or annoyed at being read so easily. "Cops outsourced some of their forensics to the company I work for. Well, _worked, _since they fired me. Anyway, you wouldn't believe just how many opportunities come across my screen. All I've got to do is pluck them. But some intern, you know, the kind who's always underfoot everywhere, she picked up what was going on and ran straight to the cops with it. I'd have let her in on things if she'd just asked. There was enough for everyone."

"There are professionals you can hire to help you out with that. They don't trip up."

"You speaking from experience?"

"No…" the other said with blatant dishonesty. "Just heard a rumour. You know how gossip travels."

Damien sniggered. "I see."

They were silent for a long minute and Damien's gaze was drawn back to the cigarette slowly getting shorter in the other's hand. Damien had decided to give up smoking while incarcerated. It seemed like a good idea, it meant he'd not have to rely on anyone for his supply, but it turned out much harder than he'd thought it would be. He wasn't used to denying himself anything he wanted, especially vices.

He said, "You aren't a smoker, are you?"

The other man chuckled. "Never liked the taste."

"I could help with that," Damien said, pointed at the cigarette. "Shame to waste it."

The other man arched an eyebrow at him, brought the cigarette up. He said, "That's a bit intimate, don't you think? I don't even know your name."

He took a drag, tiny point of bright orange and a fresh puff of smoke curling past his lips.

"Well, we can take care of that," Damien said and held out his right hand. "I'm Damien."

The other left the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, reached for Damien's hand and shook it with a hard grip before letting go again. .

"Aiden," he said. He left it at that for another minute, but then took the cigarette from his mouth, twisted it in his fingers and offered it to Damien.

* * *

_End of _Traps, Pitfalls and Swindles_

* * *

**Reference**: Damien is quoting from Casablanca.

"Traps, pitfalls and swindles" can be summed up by tactics that wring a draw from what is really a losing position.

**Author's Note:** Sadly, I'm a rotten chess player, but I do have a certain appreciation for it.

These are the ending positions of the first game (I got those off a website and I just love it. It's _exactly _what I wanted!):

White: Qg7; Pa2; Ka1

Black: Rb8; Kg8; Rc7; Nh5; Qa3

* * *

_**Revised on 29/Nov/2016**_


	40. Urban Jungle

**General Note: **I'm aware of the chronology issues. I cannot really fix, because reordering the chapters isn't viable. You can opt to read on ao3 or you can use the tumblr page I've set up. You can reach either of these through the profile.

* * *

**Warning:** All teenagers are psychopaths. Aiden especially.

**Auther's Note:** This idea sparked after _delcaaty_ on tumblr asked what I thought about Aiden's school education and because _nanno_ mentioned liking my pre-game Aiden. I have no resistance to suggestion, apparently.

**Recurring characters: **Tighe previously appeared in Black Sheep and is mentioned in Dogtown, he's a friend of Aiden. Leslie is Aiden's girlfriend in Dogtown (that hare-brained courtship advise notwithstanding.)

* * *

[summary: a day in the life of seventeen year old aiden]

[takes place in 1991]

**_Urban Jungle**

* * *

Ten hours of work were a leaden weight on Kathleen Pearce's entire body, pulling her eyelids down, making her steps heavy and slow, like walking through water. Last week, her car had broken down, needing several replacement parts she couldn't easily afford. She had to take the bus to and from work and it added nearly two hours to her routine, but she could still manage to be home to fix breakfast for her children and see them off to school before dropping into bed.

She gave Aiden's door a loud knock, but received no reply so she opened it, or at least tried to. Barely an inch open, the door stalled and she had to lean into it with her shoulder, pushing a pile of clothes out of the way, some belt buckle got stuck underneath the door and stopped it completely, but it would do.

"Aiden," she called.

Her son's room was dark, he'd meticulously drawn all the blinds, preventing even a hint of morning sun to wake him even a minute earlier than necessary. Kathleen only cast a quick glance around the room. It was just as untidy as the blockage of the door had advertised, though there was some sort of order on his desk, where he'd disassembled two personal computers he'd bought cheap and tried to salvage.

Aiden himself was an equally uneven mountain of blankets, completely hidden from sight and clearly not stirring at all.

"_Aiden. _Wake up right now."

He groaned and the mountain moved a little, though it looked like he was only burying himself deeper, but finally seemed to be giving up, rolled to his side so the top of head became visible. He opened one eye and fixed it on the glowing digits of his clock.

"Come on," he moaned. "'s another twenty minutes."

"Why is Tighe asleep in his car in our drive-way?"

Drowsiness and confusion washed over his face and he pushed his head a little higher, looking back at her.

"Wha…?"

"Tighe is parked in the drive-away and asleep behind the wheel," Kathleen clarified.

Aiden kept staring at her, clearly trying to process the information and figuring out its immediate meaning. When it clicked through, he let his head drop back down and slung an arm over his eyes.

"He was just supposed to drop me off," he said, voice still rough from sleep. "I dunno shit why he's still there."

Kathleen snorted, arched a brow at him. "Well, I guess he was too drunk or too stoned to drive home _and _too drunk or too stoned to just come inside, too. But that's not the real questions here, the real question is why he was supposed to drop you off in the first place?"

Aiden groaned again, tightened the arm over his eyes as if it would make her go away.

Kathleen said, "You _promised _you'd stay home with Nicky."

"We were just over at Krome's house," Aiden said, obvious misgiving creeping in his voice as his sleepiness dripped away. "She isn't a little kid, she can stay home alone for a few hours."

"That's not the point," Kathleen said, but she guessed they were both equally tired of the discussion.

"It never is…"

"No, it isn't," she agreed tartly. She kept still for another moment, but finally relaxed slightly in the doorway.

"Alright," she relented. "Why don't you ask Tighe if he wants to come in for breakfast at least?"

Aiden grunted a very vague affirmative and Kathleen turned to go, forced her feet to move. She unhooked her bag from her shoulder, glad to have the sting leave her flesh. She dropped the bag and her cardigan, then made her way to the kitchen. Passing Aiden's door again, she leaned in briefly.

"I meant _right now," _she reminded him.

Aiden cursed audibly, but she heard the whispering of blankets as he finally worked himself free of them. He overtook her on the way to the kitchen, face set in narrow-eyed annoyance.

Through the kitchen window, Kathleen watched Aiden advance on Tighe's car and knock on the window, he had to keep going for quite some time before Tighe even reacted. Tighe rolled the window down, let his head drop out like he'd been shot, staring up at Aiden.

Kathleen busied herself preparing breakfast, set the coffee to percolate, toast in the toaster and put the pan on the stove. When she looked up again, she spotted Aiden at the mailbox, but he'd stopped seemingly in mid-movement, watching a police car as it drove down the street until it turned out of sight.

On her way from the bus station, Kathleen had passed by the police line, but hadn't had the energy to linger or wonder at what new atrocity had been committed in her neighbourhood. It was exactly for that reason that she didn't like to leave Nicky alone at night. Not because she didn't trust her daughter, but because she didn't trust everyone else around her.

Tighe trailed after Aiden into the kitchen, looking just as bedraggled as expected. His blond hair stood out on one side of his head, pressed down tightly on the other. He only made it worse when he pushed his hand through it.

"Good morning, Mrs. Pearce," he said, fidgeting like the teenager he was as she looked him over.

"Good morning, Tighe," she said and released him from her gaze to settle on her son instead. She felt the corners of her mouth tighten. "Aiden? Can you not leave the house in your underwear? We are civilised. At least most of us are."

Aiden only shrugged, mumbled something involving the word 'clean' and sat down on the kitchen table to leaf through the mail.

Tighe hovered around the doorway in indecision, before he pushed himself in and picked a seat by Aiden's side, trying to appear unassuming, scratching the side of his face and rubbing his bleary eyes.

Kathleen looked back at him. "Do you need a toothbrush?" she asked, couldn't quite help but smile.

"Uh…" Tighe grunted. "Just coffee thanks?"

Kathleen knocked the eggs into the pan, watched them sizzle for a while, then gave the pan a little shove. She glanced back over her shoulder.

"So, where were you?" she asked.

She saw Aiden pull a face from the corner of her eyes, but he got it under control immediately.

"Just at Krome's place," he said. "Look, that's just a couple of minutes away, if something happens, Nicky could've just called I'd've been there. No biggie."

Kathleen shook her head. "I have to be able to rely on you, if you say one thing and do another… do you think I really can?"

"Nicky doesn't need a babysitter anymore," Aiden insisted. An assessment Nicky would agree with, but neither of them got a say in it as far as Kathleen was concerned.

Kathleen sighed, clenched her jaw. She gave the eggs a quick look, then turned around, crossed her arms over her chest.

"And why are you staying out late on a school day anyway?"

"It wasn't _late," _Aiden said.

"It really wasn't!" Tighe confirmed, but shut up immediately when both Aiden and Kathleen shot him a look.

"While we're at it," Kathleen continued. "You skipped twice last week. Anything you have to say in your defence?"

"I was there three times?" Aiden offered. "I was there more often than not."

Kathleen arched her brows. "Try again," she suggested.

Aiden hung his shoulders, obviously trying not to pout, but unsure what else to do. "It was boring," he said, somewhat more meekly under her stare.

He considered school a waste of time. Last winter, she'd spent _weeks _talking him into treating the SAT with even a measure of earnestness and his results reflected it. He pretended the good score was an accident, trying to brush it aside. She got the impression he'd be much happier if he'd just got every answer wrong instead and got her off his back in the process.

With the obvious intention of changing the subject, Aiden picked up a letter and held it out. "Owen's Garage is holding your car hostage?"

"We already spoke," Kathleen said. "The parts turned out to be more expensive than he'd expected and…"

Aiden's expression darkened as he read the letter to the end, lowered it and glowered at her from across the table. "He won't give the car back, that's bullshit."

"We've agreed he'll hold the car until I pay up a third of it, then pay down the rest. It's not a bad deal."

"No, it's a _terrible _deal," Aiden said. "I told you I knew someone who can fix the car."

"And I told _you _I don't want anything to do with these people. It's bad enough that you hang out with them. No offence, Tighe," she added without even looking at him.

Tighe murmured, "None, uh, taken."

Kathleen turned back away from them, busied herself at the stove again. "We've been over this, Aiden, it's going to be hard, but at least it's honest. You'll figure out why eventually. Why don't you go wake your sister?"

The pause told her Aiden thought about arguing, but he put the mail down instead, got up and padded back through the house without any apparent hurry. A few moments later, the sound of a quickly escalating discussion made itself heard, closely followed by what sounded like a brief struggle. Something thudded heavily, presumably when Aiden had yanked the blanket off the bed while Nicole hung on to it.

"You jerk!" Nicole yelled.

Kathleen went to the cupboard and took out a stack of plates, got a handful of cutlery and carried it to the table, set it down and gave Tighe an encouraging smile. "Make yourself useful," she said.

Among the two of them, she knew Aiden was the one with the bad influence on the other, despite her cheap jab in Tighe's direction before. Though, half a year older than Aiden, Tighe had been like a loyal sidekick almost from the first day they'd arrived in Chicago. Kathleen wasn't sure what both boys were growing into, but she knew Tighe's family wasn't in any state to keep him back from the edge. She herself wasn't doing so well, either…

The doorbell rang and Aiden called, "I'll get it!"

A moment later, Kathleen took the pan from the stove and turned to watch a uniformed police officer walk into the kitchen. She observed him as he looked around the room, aware of the tired-looking woman and the bedraggled teenager sitting at the table. A tilt of his head indicated he'd noticed the sound of the shower.

"I'm sorry to disturb you this early," the cop said. "But there was a knifing just down the road sometime last night and I was wondering if any of you heard or saw something?"

He took a step further into the kitchen when Aiden squeezed past him. Aiden had pulled on a crumpled T-shirt and made his way to the coffee machine, poured himself a cup and leaned back against the counter.

"I work nightshifts," Kathleen said. "I just got home half an hour ago."

The cop looked around the room again, lingered first on Tighe, then Aiden.

"What about you two?" he asked. "Were you home?"

"Yes," Aiden said immediately. "Babysitting my sister. But we didn't see anything. It was quiet. I mean, as quiet as it gets around here."

The cop watched him. Pensively, he asked. "Do you think I didn't see the gang tattoo?"

The blood drained from Aiden's face, but his composure held. "But we were home," he insisted.

"Yeah," Tighe added. "I wish we could help, poor Three Wheel, right?"

The cop snapped his head around, did his best to school his features and said, "Three Wheel? Did I mention that?"

Tighe didn't miss a beat. "I just heard it, fuck you… I mean, not _you, _officer. Some guys said it was Three Wheel. It _is _him, right?"

"I thought you were home?" the cop inquired.

Heedless of the heavy silence, Kathleen picked up the pan and a folded kitchen towel, walked to the table and dropped it there, set the pan with scrambled eggs down on it. She looked at the cop.

"He was at the store just before you came," she explained calmly. "We were out of milk."

She straightened and fixed the cop with a hard stare. "I'm sorry we can't help you."

The cop's misgiving was obvious and tangible, but if he had expected anyone to talk in this neighbourhood he had only himself to blame. He took one last look around the room, gaze resting on Aiden for a moment longer, considering if he should push the gang angle he suspected. Instead, he shrugged slightly. He reminded them they could always call if they suddenly remembered something, but then left without another word.

When he was gone, Tighe chuckled as he stepped close to Aiden, elbowed him in the side and said, "See? You should get dressed when mommy tells you to."

Aiden elbowed him back, but changed it into a grip when he felt Kathleen's scrutiny. He pushed Tighe to the table and down on a chair, before he sat down by his side, still with the cup of coffee in his hand.

In the wake of the cop's departure, the silence was still heavy, ripe with many unsaid things. None of which seemed to bother Nicole much as she came in, looking by far the worst of all of them with bags under her eyes. Short, damp hair stood out in wild angles, but at least she was already dressed. She shot Aiden a baleful look.

She demanded to have coffee, though everyone knew she didn't like the taste. Kathleen let her have the cup and would later dump most of it in the sink.

Breakfast was a tense affair, reminding Kathleen of her lack of sleep, among other things. Aiden and Nicole bickered and Tighe kept his head down. Kathleen didn't eat much, but forced down half a toast and few forkfuls of egg, keeping her attention on the clock.

"Let's not run late today," she said, announcing the breakfast over. "Go get ready," she told Nicole. "Tighe will drive you to school today."

She didn't give Nicole the option to argue, but looked at Tighe to say, "Why don't you wait in the car?"

Tighe shot Aiden a quick look, but seemed to be entirely too glad he had permission to get the hell out of here. Aiden ignored him and Nicole took the rest of her toast with her.

Kathleen could still hear Nicole rummage in her room, but for now her daughter was safely out of earshot.

Kathleen said, "What happened last night?"

"I had nothing to do with it!"

She took a heavy breath, surprised at how much effort it took. "That's not what I asked."

"We were at Krome's place. I wasn't lying!"

Kathleen frowned, studied her son but saw nothing but stubborn determination in his face. He wasn't stupid enough to think he could hide his activities from her and he certainly knew what she thought about them. Some days, it was a very bitter pill to swallow.

"This Krome… he's your gang leader?" Kathleen asked, forced herself to sound reasonable, but the admission alone grated. "Did he set you up?"

"Mom…" Aiden tried. "It wasn't us."

"Well, if it _was _you, I wonder if you wouldn't tell me the exact same thing."

Aiden clenched his jaw and he seemed determined to keep silent, but thought better of it immediately.

He said, "I had nothing to do with it, I swear."

Kathleen still studied his face and she sighed again. She thought of her own mother, less than twenty years ago, sighing like that. She'd tried to explain it all to Aiden, back in Belfast when she'd laid out for him and Nicole why they had to leave, why their father was not a good man to have around. She'd thought they'd understood, but this? Aiden was slipping away, a little more every single day.

Kathleen looked away from him, over the table and she told him, "Get going."

If Aiden caught any of the nuances, he didn't show it. He seemed only glad to be released, slipped to his feet and left the kitchen in a mixture of a swagger and a run, eager to be free of it.

Once alone, Kathleen faltered, a plate in her hand and reaching for another. It took an entire minute until she found the energy to keep going.

* * *

Aiden and Tighe lounged on the metal awning over a shop door. The place had recently gone bankrupt, just like several other businesses along the street. Wooden boards had been nailed over the door at some point, but already someone had torn them off and squatters had moved in, junkies or homeless, depending on time of day and weather.

Aiden handed the joint off to Tighe and leaned his back into the strained wall, let one leg dangle over the edge of the awning.

Tighe took a long drag, let his head drop back and watched the smoke curl into the overcast sky. Sometimes, the clouds would tear open, letting a little blue peak through as a meek reminder of summer, lasting barely a few minutes at a time.

"Man…" he started, chuckled. "Your mother's a scary bitch, you know that, right?"

"Yeah," Aiden agreed pensively, then reached out with one hand for Tighe's shoulder until the other was looking back at him. Aiden plastered a frown on his lax features and added, "That's what makes me a scary son of bitch, so don't talk shit like that, T."

Tighe lifted both his hands up, "Hey, it was a fucking compliment, you asshole." He made some vague gestures with one hand in the air. "But nooo, you've got to go all _gangsta _on me! 'No talking crap about my _mother_!' Fuck. _You_."

"Fuck you, too."

Tighe grunted, then chuckled again and resettled himself more comfortable on the awning, holding the joint out to Aiden, who took it and took a long drag.

"Hey man," Tighe started again. "Aren't you skipping chem class?"

"Yeah."

"Isn't Leslie in that class?"

Aiden chuckled a bit before he answered. He angled his head down, watched the street below their feet instead of the dull sky, though cracking asphalt wasn't much more interesting. It had something desolate about it, deserted and lost. It could be the opening shot for some dystopian sci fi movie, the artsy type where a sprinkle of blood comes out of nowhere, splattering across the ground and tracing the cracks…

"Yeah, so what?"

"She's hot," Tighe said, shrugging.

"_But," _Aiden stretched the word in his mouth, gestured with the joint in his fingers before Tighe made a lazy attempt to snatch it from him. Aiden transferred it into his other hand, held it out of reach as he finished, "But I know she's got a crush on me, so… that's what you do. You make them come to _you_."

Tighe eyed his friend skeptically. "Are you sure that's how it works?"

"Leslie's best friend has a sister and _her _best friend has some classes with Nicky," Aiden grinned. "Girls like to talk."

"You lost me at 'best friend'… one of them, anyway," Tighe muttered, expression drifting into a frown. "And stop hogging the joint. That's my pot anyway. You're lucky I'm sharing."

Aiden relented and handed what was left of the joint over, shifted some more to hook his other leg against the edge of the awning. He watched an old station-wagon lumbering down the street, its engine growling darkly as it passed, weathered black paint made the thing look like a meat wagon, all that was missing was some Mardi Gras parade following in its wake. But Bridgeport wasn't interesting enough for that sort of thing, especially on a slow Thursday.

"Poor Three Wheel," Tighe muttered, out of the blue, jolting Aiden back into the present.

"Yeah," Aiden agreed blithely. "Didn't deserve it _at all, _the motherfucker."

"What do you mean?"

"The way I hear it, Three Wheel was double-dealing Krome and when the shit blew up, he tried to make nice with Drago himself to get out of it," Aiden explained. "That's bad form, he had it coming."

Tighe blinked a few times, took the last drag from the joint and snipped it away, tracked the bud with his gaze as it arched through the air, hit the concrete and rolled a few inches further. It was rather anticlimactic.

"Krome did it?" Tighe asked.

"_Of course _not," Aiden said, a little sharper. "But… people like Three Wheel, they fall into knives sometimes, bad fucking luck."

Aiden pulled himself up, shoulder into the wall and turned a critical eye on Tighe. "It happens to people who run their mouths, too."

Tighe snorted and let his eyes droop closed. "You like this shit too much, you know that?"

Aiden laughed and was silent for a while, letting the city sounds wash over him. The clouds ripped open and a few rays of sunlight cut down, bleached golden in the dusty air. It was warm for a moment only, and then the shadow returned, harsher in comparison than it had been before.

"Why do you think a place like _Owen_'s Garage is ran by a latino?" Aiden mused.

"Maybe so he doesn't scare the pagan locals," Tighe offered dispassionately. "Like us."

Aiden sat up, glanced at Tighe and slipped from the awning, landed smoothly. He stretched his arms over his head, languidly, before he seemed ready to tense into a much sharper posture.

"Hey, you wanna catch a bite?" he asked.

"In a minute," Tighe said.

"I don't have a car," Aiden pointed out. "That means you're coming."

Tighe pulled a face, but finally leaned up, frowned down on Aiden from his perch. "Is there a reason why pot makes you pushy? Like, that's the opposite of what normal people do, they just relax. You're annoying as fuck."

"Yeah, but I got something to do," Aiden only shrugged. "We're meeting some of the guys in the Dogtown, I need your help with something."

Tighe growled quietly, like a disgruntled animal, but he pushed himself up and got down from the awning without further complaint, only to stand squinting in another ray of sunlight.

"But _you're _buying," he said as he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and fell into step beside Aiden, sauntering back to the where Tighe's car was parked outside the school.

"Why not," Aiden shrugged and held out his hand. "Let me drive."

* * *

Kathleen still had an hour before she would have to leave for work and she enjoyed the moment of silence as the evening slowly filled the kitchen. Nicole had finished most of her homework and slunk off to watch television with a last slice of pizza for company. The TV chattered from the adjoining room and added a few dancing lights to the floor, but it wasn't disturbing the moment.

Kathleen wrapped her fingers around the cup of coffee in her hand, felt the warmth seep through. She inhaled the scent and let her eyes fall closed.

The growl of a car brought her back and she snapped her eyes open again, a frown settling on her face before she even understood why it would be there at all.

She heard the jingle of keys, the snapping of the front door and a moment later, Aiden's voice from the living room.

"Hey, Nic, I got you chips."

The bag chittered as he threw it and Nicole caught it, clearly already getting to work on it.

Nicole said, "You promised you'd help with my homework. I had to do it with Mom."

"I brought you chips, that's a sorry. Where's Mom?"

"Kitchen."

Kathleen turned her gaze toward the door, just in time to see Aiden stride in. She spotted a happy grin on his face as he stepped to the table and dropped the key of her car down in front of her.

"I got it back!" he announced.

Kathleen's gaze had been pulled along with the key and lingered on it before she tracked it back up to her son's face, watched him in silence until his grin began to falter.

It wasn't very bright in the room anymore, but it was more than enough, especially because she'd already known she'd see it, if she paid attention. She uncurled one hand from her cup and snapped it forward, faster than he could have expected, and closed her hand around his wrist, pulled forward and forced him to drape his hand on to the table by the key.

The knuckles on his hand were bruised.

"What did you do?" she asked, very quietly.

She felt the way his arm tensed under her grip, fingers trying to flex or curl away, muscles straining in his effort not to snatch his arm out of her grip.

"I just went to Owen's Garage," he said.

"And did what?"

Aiden hesitated, unsure what to say.

"Meza was ripping you off," Aiden pointed out. "That wasn't fair of him. And you need the car, going by bus is a bitch."

"Ricardo Meza is just trying to keep his head above water, like everybody else," Kathleen said. "I told you I'd already reached an agreement with him."

Aiden creased his brows in confusion and frustration. "Why won't you let me help?"

"You help me best with good grades," she said quietly. "You help me better with grades good enough for a college scholarship."

Unimpressed by her words, Aiden moaned, "Ah, college."

He pulled a face and added, "It wouldn't get you your car back."

"Not today, no," she conceded. "But that's not the point."

"You keep saying that," Aiden muttered. "What's it even mean?"

Kathleen relaxed her hand, took it away from him and wrapped her fingers around the cup.

"Some things matter more than others," she said. "What's more important, my convenience or the health and livelihood of someone who has his own bills to pay?"

"But he was ripping you off!" Aiden insisted.

"Aiden, sit down," Kathleen said.

He hovered for a moment, the need to assure himself of his own independence and perhaps to steel himself for what he suspected was about to come.

The chair scraped over the floor as he pulled it back, he dropped himself messily on it and hung an insolent arm over the back.

Kathleen took a breath before she spoke.

"Do you remember your father?"

"Of course I remember Dad."

"Yes, but do you remember what it was like?" she studied him for a reaction, but there was nothing but teenage defiance and a special brand of typical Pearce stubbornness. "There was that one time, when his gambling buddies thrashed our living room over debt. You got slapped."

"Yeah, and _you_ slapped me, too."

She almost laughed. "Yes," she said and her own frustration was becoming hard to hide. "Because what were you thinking? Stepping in like you did? Those men were dangerous, they could've done far worse than slap you." She stopped herself. She didn't want to bring it up, it was supposed to be only an example, but the shock of that night seemed to have taken deeper roots than she had realised.

"What's that got to do with anything?" Aiden demanded.

"Graham always said he did it for us, you remember that too?" She fixed him, close to desperation for any hint she was getting through to him at all. "Did it _feel _like he was doing anything for us?"

"Dad was a mess," Aiden said. "But he tried."

Kathleen nodded, "Yes, he tried."

She paused a moment, let the silence linger before she said, "Are you _trying, _too?"

He was far too smart not to understand her meaning. It put an indignant frown on his face and he said, "No, I'm _helping. _If you'd just let me…"

Kathleen slammed her hand down on the table, hard enough to rattle the bones in her hand all the way to her elbow.

"Breaking the law helps _no one!" _she snapped. "And I'm so very tired to have this discussion again. I had it with your father for _years! _And I'm not going to watch you make the same stupid mistakes again. Do you get that?"

She had half risen from her seat, staring her son down who bore the weight of it with a stoicism well beyond his age. She didn't feel like she was getting anything through his thick skull, though. She hadn't got it through to her husband, either…

The doorbell rang, then someone hammered hard on the front door, shouting.

_"Yo, Danny Boy! Move your bitch ass out here before I come get it!"_

Aiden hadn't even flinched when she had hit the table, but a tiny shiver ran through his body now. She saw his eyes go wide, an instant of panic, he covered up immediately. He clenched his jaw, blinked up at her and opened his mouth to say something, but the man outside shouted again.

_"Danny Boy! Last chance or your door's a goner!"_

Aiden only mouthed a meaningless 'I'm sorry', already on his feet, slipped past her without meeting her gaze again. He pushed past Nicole on the way to the door, Kathleen met her daughter's bewildered look and could do nothing but shake her head.

* * *

Aiden burst through the door, giving it an aggressive kick he hoped would land right in Krome's ugly mug, but Krome must have expected it and slapped his hand flat against the door from the outside, stalling it. The wood vibrated between the two of them and Aiden pushed outside.

"What the fuck?" he demanded, up in Krome's face and right into his personal space. Without looking, Aiden jarred the door out of Krome's hand, threw it closed.

"That's my line," Krome sneered, unimpressed and not budging even an inch.

Krome was a few years older than Aiden, a little taller and broader. Red-haired with a permanent pink-ish tint on his skin and mocking blue eyes.

"I just got home," Krome said, affecting a light, conversational tone with menace behind it. "And I hear, little Danny Boy is giving orders to _my _crew now?"

Aiden held still, momentarily caught between Krome's rage in front of him and Kathleen's more subtle fury behind him. He didn't like having Krome on his doorstep, close enough for Kathleen and Nicky to hear what he was saying, never mind he hadn't exactly expected Krome to be riled up about what he'd done.

Aiden took a small step back and then to the side, getting down the steps to the garden path. Krome's convertible was parked messily on the sidewalk ahead, still blaring loud music into the evening air.

"What's the problem?" Aiden asked, more dismissive than he felt. At least Krome was following him down, if only so he could clamp a hand around Aiden's upper arm and yank him back around, forcing him to face him again.

"They're my friends," Aiden added reasonably, but edging backward in Krome's grip. "They helped me out. I'm not trying to run your crew."

"What's the problem?" Krome repeated sneering. Without letting go of Aiden, Krome stabbed him with a finger in the chest, saying, "The problem is you little punk think you can run my business. I have a deal with Meza! How do you think that looks?"

"He was…"

"Shut the fuck up, you Irish piece of shit! Right from the start, you were a fucking arrogant pain in the ass! You don't show any _respect. _You don't follow the rules. You think there's a place for some upstart dipshit like you in my crew? You…"

Aiden threw the first punch and then tore into Krome without holding back. They kicked up the drying lawn, scrambling for footholds against the other, both sounding like rabid dogs, fighting over scraps out in the street. It wasn't far from the truth.

Aiden's eyebrow split under a blow and a rivulet of blood ran down the side of his face and into his eye, confused his sense of balance for long enough, Krome wrapped a hand around his throat. It wasn't a good hold, even clawing his fingers into Aiden' neck as he was. He kept pushing back, trying to trip him, but all he managed to do was make them both crash into the trashcan.

They reeled apart, half-slipping on scattered trash. Aiden dove for the lid, brought it up like a shield and smashed it right into Krome's face. Krome howled, stumbled back. Aiden lowered the lid. Krome's nose was bloodied and swollen and for a moment he seemed dumbfounded, wiping at the blood.

Krome looked up, fixed on Aiden and hissed, disconcertingly quiet, "You're fucking _dead _now."

Aiden punched him with the lid again, but this time Krome saw him coming and ripped it away from him, sent the thing sailing off somewhere while he launched himself at Aiden, tearing them both back down.

Aiden landed on some hard piece of trash, unexpected pain shot up his spine and it forced a choking yell from his throat. It left him off-balance for long enough for Krome to get his hand around his throat again, but Aiden immediately snapped his head up, into Krome's broken nose and Krome, with a yell, let up.

As he skittered back, Aiden brought his leg up, kicked it into Krome's stomach and Krome toppled back. He only came back up on all fours, slower than Aiden by a narrow margin, but well enough for Aiden to deliver a second kick into his already bloodied face.

Krome drew back, still struggling to get back to his feet when Aiden reached for him and picked him up by the collar, brought them face to face.

"You sure?" Aiden asked through bared teeth and with glinting eyes. In reply, Krome threw another punch, caught the side of Aiden's face, yanked free of the hold and threw a second punch. Dodging it, Aiden caught Krome's arm and held, twisted it around so hard, Krome had no choice but to drop to his knee. Aiden kept pushing until Krome was far enough down that Aiden could smash his head into the side of the trashcan. It rolled away sluggishly under the blow.

Krome struggled, snarling, kicked out with his legs and worked himself free again.

He stumbled away a few steps. "You piece of shit, you're done!" Krome declared, breathing hard, wet from his broken nose. "You'll be put _down, _you know that?"

In answer, Aiden stepped forward quickly, swiped the feet away from under Krome, gave him a hard kick to the back of one knee as he went down. He took one step back, spread his hands out in mocking invitation.

"Bring it on!" he yelled and his voice tipped a little. "Seen nothing impressive yet!"

Krome pulled himself back to his feet, withdrew one careful step at a time. He straightened a little when Aiden made no attempt to attack again.

"You're done for, bitch," Krome said, but each time he repeated it, he sounded a little less convincing. He stole a quick look around, clearly gauging how far it was to his car.

Aiden frowned and the expression pushed fresh blood down the side of his face. He wiped at it absent-mindedly as he caught up with Krome, knocked him to the ground again. Krome didn't resist this time, winced in pain and wrapped one arm around his torso.

"You got that one backward," Aiden said, conversational despite his own fast breathing. "You're down on the ground like some little bitch. Not me. What's the crew gonna think, they see you like that?"

Krome sputtered, crawled a few steps before he started struggling to his feet. He kept his gaze on Aiden, but turned and took a few hurried steps toward his car.

"It's not fucking over," Krome declared.

"Then where are you going?"

Aiden watched as Krome crossed the lawn, only when Krome almost reached the car, broke Aiden into motion again. A few quick, long strides brought him to the edge of the sidewalk just as Krome climbed into his car.

"Come on, why are you leaving?" Aiden inquired, had to raise his voice over the howl of the engine. "I'm not done fucking you over!"

Krome backed up, then brought the car around in a sharp circle, accelerated down the street.

"Run!" Aiden yelled after him. "Run and hide!"

He sucked in ragged breaths, riding out the waves of his adrenaline.

"We'll see who's done for," he added, more to himself as he turned away from the street. Some of the trash had been scattered across the lawn and he gave some bundled piece of plastic wrappings a kick and it tore open, dispersing half-rotted vegetable peel.

Looking up, he froze.

Kathleen stood outlined in the front door, a black shadow, framed by light. Her expression was hidden in darkness, even the direction of her gaze could be anything. Could be the trash, could be Aiden's bleeding brow and swelling lip. She could even be looking into the distance, all the way home to Belfast perhaps and the realisation she'd never had a chance to get far enough away.

Aiden knew she was looking at him, at his eyes, though he had no idea if she saw more than he did.

Her shadow changed and deformed to accommodate Nicole coming up behind her. The shadow jostled as Kathleen moved, took her gaze away from her son and let it pass over her daughter before it came back to him.

By then, the spell had already broken. Remnant adrenaline surged through Aiden's veins and put new energy into his steps as he walked back to the door, pushed past his mother and Nicky into the house. Only Nicky's dumbstruck attention trailed after him, like the thin line of blood that soiled the floor in his wake.

Kathleen was no longer looking at him.

* * *

_"Are you fucking crazy?"_

"Yeah, crazy like the fox, T. Don't worry, I got it covered."

_"Don't worry? You're _literally _dead man walking now, you know that? Don't take it personally, but I'm gonna stay away from you. I don't wanna be collateral damage or anything."_

"You shouldn't. If you got any sense, you stick with me. Krome's on the way out. He already fucked up with Three Wheel. This thing? He won't live it down. Krome's over."

_"… seriously? I mean, you really mean that? It's not just talk? This is serious, Aiden."_

"You should pay more attention, the other guys have already figured it out. Krome keeps pushing, he'll just lose most of the crew."

_"Wait… you _are _serious?"_

"Of course I'm serious."

_"Shit, man. I don't know. You sure you can pull it off? What about Drago?"_

"If it goes to shit so bad, Drago has to step in, they'll be finding Krome's body for weeks and Krome knows it, I know it, everyone knows it. Why don't you know it?"

_"Alright, smart-ass, maybe I believe it. Just… tell me one thing. You didn't plan it, right? You just… I dunno, just got with the flow?"_

"I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."

_"I don't know if you realise you don't sound like you're joking when you say shit like that."_

"That's part of my charm. Listen, I gotta go."

_"Why? Some more kings to kill and thrones to usurp?"_

"No, not this week… I promised I'd help Nicky with her physics homework and I'm meeting up with Leslie later."

_"Fuck. _Me_. Right. What else can I say? All hail?"_

"You're welcome. And fuck you."

_"Fuck you, too."_

* * *

_End of _Urban Jungle_

* * *

**Author's Note: **The Pearces being immigrants creates more stupid problems than you can shake a stick at. It so very 19th Century, isn't it? I'm the first (and often only) one to defend the writing in this game, but this? Nope, not even gonna try.

Aiden has a gang tattoo on the left side of his torso. It's mentioned in Flashpoint and I'm really proud I remembered I put it there.

Bridgeport is a part of Chicago, it has no equivalent in the game.

**For my non-US readers: **SAT is a standardised aptitude test used for college admission, usually taken in the last year of high school.

**For my US readers: **Correct me if I got anything seriously wrong!

* * *

**Revised on 22/January/2016 and 28/October/2016**


	41. Loose Ends - Part 1

**Warning: **Violence, mention of rape, slavery and drug use

**Author's Note: **I think maybe I haven't paid enough attention to the finer details of Poppy's backstory. I didn't want to address her psychological trauma in depth since it isn't very interesting to me. I'm still not getting into it, but some of it needs to be acknowledged.

This time around, I've managed to kickstart my own inspiration by crashing my car in the tunnel where Lena died. I didn't expect just how guilty that made me feel.

I swear to god this was supposed to be in one part and at a decent length. Alas, it wasn't to be…

* * *

[summary: some debts can't be left unpaid]

[takes place in 2015, after _Nightcall: Running With Scissors]

**_Loose Ends – Part 1**

* * *

Something was different today.

Aiden slipped his hand up over her breast in a slow caress, traced the sharp edge of a collarbone before he spayed his fingers along her jaw. His other hand rested on her hip, holding her close with the weight of his arm alone.

She didn't like _gentle_, it made her feel vulnerable. She brought her hand up, closed it around his wrist and held him in place while she angled her head to the side, lunged for his fingers with her mouth and pulled one between her teeth to entice him into something harder. She nestled back into him, laced the fingers of her other hand with his, added the force he was withholding.

Close enough to feel his breathing against her back, Aiden went still, a tension he inadvertedly transferred to her. He shifted his hand on her face, freed his finger and trailed a wet line down her throat, tilting her head a little further to the side. She didn't understand the significance until he traced the scar on her throat with the tips of two fingers — one wet, one dry — the same too delicate touch.

"I never asked," he said quietly, close to her ear, then he drew back a little, pressed his nose to the junction of her jaw. His breathing brushed over her skin, she even felt the faint whisper of his eyelashes as he blinked. "If it's okay," he added, pressed down for a moment against her throat to emphasis his meaning, then let up again.

She laughed at how ridiculous it was, but the tension remained as he waited for an answer.

She said, "It's different if it's you. I trust you."

He was silent too long and in that silence, she could sense his mind work.

Finally he said, "I saw it."

Donna sat up abruptly, glad for the first time for his lax hold, because his hands simply fell away from her, gave her the space she needed to turn on the couch and face him. The sun had dipped down a while ago, but the sky still had some glimmer of silver to it, just enough to make out the outline of his face, not enough to really read in it.

"What do you mean?" she asked, but only because it was something to say. Of course, she'd known most of the rooms had had surveillance, it kept the girls on an even shorter leash, but mostly, it kept the _clients _under control, one more tool for the Club to strengthen and expand it's influence. She'd never really thought about _her _being in these videos, too, or that people would see them. That _he_ would, eventually.

Aiden exhaled, sharply, she hadn't noticed he'd stopped breathing when she'd moved away from him.

"I wasn't looking for you," he said, sounded a little defensive. "I was looking for someone else. I knew she'd been sent to the auction, but she wasn't among the rescued girls. I went through the hard-drives the CPD confiscated. Someone tried deleting everything, but didn't have time to do a good job. I recovered some of it."

Donna's gaze wandered away from him and aimlessly around the room. Her mind seemed to have emptied out and left her a hollow shell. She didn't know if she still felt anything in that moment at all, even her body was strange. She didn't know how long she sat there and said nothing, though she knew distantly he was studying her.

"Vincent Fisher," Aiden said and the name felt like a whiplash over her back. She didn't think she flinched, but she wasn't sure. Fisher was an old friend of Demarco's, he'd been running several clubs at the time Donna was given to the Infinite 92. Fisher was a useful threat to keep the girls in line, a sadist who got off on breaking resistance. Something had happened, though, and Fisher had been replaced by someone else. He'd still been around, but his authority hadn't been what it used to be. She hadn't seen him at the auction.

Aiden continued, "That other girl I was looking for, he took her."

"Who?" she asked, but the word came out almost too faintly to be heard.

"The girl? Her name is Abigail Vega. I…" he hesitated. "I have a debt to pay and she's the only one left. She wasn't at the auction because one of the 'guests' beat her unconscious before it even kicked off. Some of Lucky's people took her to a mob doctor who patched her up. She got sold to a brothel, run by Fisher and supported by the Club. "

"I don't know her," she said. All the girls, it became difficult to distinguish them after a time, even in the Infinite 92, most didn't last very long and were replaced.

Donna caught herself chewing on her lower lip and forced her teeth from her own flesh. She turned around to face him. He'd sat up, too, she hadn't noticed, pulled one leg under him and sat straight against the side of the couch.

"Did you see everything?" she asked.

"That video has been overwritten a few times, I recovered only about twenty seconds of it. Reconstructing data like that, you never know what gets dug up. I had to look at everything."

The thought eased her a little. For a moment, she thought of returning to him, curl up in his arms and just wait until her mind filled up again of it's own and she could think straight again.

It _was _different with him, but perhaps not different enough and she didn't feel like she wanted to be held. Instead, she stood up and took a few steps, glad her legs carried her and put a vigour into her step she hadn't expected to fake.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"Get the girl out," he said. "Make sure the dirty cops are cut out of the loop and give the good cops a tip."

"What about… Fisher?" she asked and finally managed to face him again. He hadn't moved since the last time, but it had grown too dark to see much more than his outline.

He said nothing at first, but he must have heard something in her voice she hadn't realised she had put there, because he said, "I could use your help on this."

He paused, seemed to regard her and see more than she did in the dark. "If you want to."

"I think I do," she said. She heard no conviction in her own voice, she still seemed to lack the emotions to put anything there. But something shook awake in her when Aiden slipped to his feet, crossed the room and switched on a light in a corner, then walked to the computers. The screens lit up, more information spread out among them than any one person should have, Donna thought.

After a moment, she walked forward to join him.

"It's not a complicated plan," he said. "I can get in, no problem. Walking out with Abbie won't be as easy."

He summoned a street-plan to his central monitor. "That's the general area. Not a lot of wriggle room. We can get hemmed in from all sides quickly."

"Why not just tip the cops directly?" Donna asked. "I know some of the good ones. A raid on that place gets all the girls out."

"Yes, but it won't give us Fisher. He's managing several places, he's on the move a lot, timing it just right, I dunno. Don't trust the cops to get it right," Aiden pointed out. "He gets away, it'll just make him more careful in the future. Besides, I thought you wanted a private chat with him first."

Donna took her gaze away from the monitor and studied his profile. "That's not…" she started and stopped. "I wouldn't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything," Aiden said, leaned back into his chair and looked up at her. "You don't have to _do_ anything. But Fisher's going down and his little organisation is going with him."

She put a hand on the desk in an attempt to stand comfortably. She said, "You should buy a second chair."

Aiden was still for a moment, his expression relaxed, but she could tell he was considering pulling her in his lap, but he never made the move and she never knew if she'd have allowed it. Fisher was in that space between them, Fisher and the Infinite 92 and everything that had happened there. What he'd seen on twenty seconds of video and everything he suspected he _hadn't_ seen.

He curved an eyebrow upward, a lacklustre attempt at levity. He turned his attention away from her and at the computer.

"Yeah, I should," he agreed.

* * *

Days and night flowed into each other, indistinguishable from each other, playing out the same farce. Abbie didn't know how long she'd been there exactly, but she knew it was long enough to find a routine to cling to. The heroin made it both easier and harder. She didn't have to worry about where it was coming from as long as she didn't act up. She knew she was losing herself — or it had already happened — but it was so difficult to care. In quiet moment, she wanted to care, though. She wanted to remember her old life and weep for it. She wanted to worry about Maurice, wonder where he was and if he'd found some solution for himself at least, if not for both of them.

It was not a brothel like the ones she'd seen briefly. There were no trappings of class, no colourful lights, just a series of rundown apartments in a decrepit apartment building. The men who frequented this place couldn't show their faces anywhere else, they didn't just want sex. These men didn't come to play, they came to hurt. If they paid enough, no one cared. If the girl was damaged beyond repair, Fisher and the Club just sold them off. No one knew where to, because it didn't seem like it could be any place worse than this. Organ trade, maybe.

Abbie had been lucky so far, if 'lucky' was the word at all, she only been beaten up and raped. No damage that didn't heal fast enough and no client ever seemed to care if she was bruised or bloodied and only few cared if her moans were fake pleasure or real pain. It had been bad enough to give her some sense of men, though. She'd always been a terrible judge of character, Maurice kept bringing it up jokingly, because she'd fallen in love with him, but it turned out, she'd just never had the right incentive.

It helped if she gauged the men right and reacted the way they wanted her to, it alleviated the suffering they would inflict, at least a little. Or perhaps she was just fooling herself, pretending to retain some control.

Leaning out the window, once, she'd seen the holes in the bricks, where the fire stairs had been. She sometimes wondered what it'd be like, trying to escape, how she'd do it, where she'd go, but the drugs wrapped her head in fluff and the men exhausted her body.

The door was pushed open and she turned her head. She sat curled up on a chair by the open window, smoking one cigarette after the other. The day was longer than the nights and sleep never a good idea.

She watched with dull eyes as a man stepped inside. He turned and closed the door, turned the key and it clicked too loudly, made her flinch though she'd promised herself so often she wouldn't. She hated the sound of that key. Her hand was shaking as she brought the cigarette back to her mouth, took a last drag and then threw it out the window.

He lingered by the door for a long moment, listening for noises outside, but it also gave her a chance to observe him. In Abbie's experience, there were no harmless men, not in this place, but this one was genuinely dangerous. Not because he was tall and muscular, not because he was armed. All these could be attributes of the weak, in an effort not to appear so. This man's danger was announced by the almost unassuming confidence of his posture, something careless and natural.

"No one's spying," Abbie said tiredly. "We don't have any cameras here. No one bothersf. No one cares."

He turned to face her, she saw a phone in his hand. If he'd leapt the room and ripped her from the chair, she wouldn't have been surprised, but he just watched her. "I know," he said. "Abbie? I'm getting you out."

She chortled, it just happened without her wanting to. "Roleplaying?" she asked. "That's not really what we offer… but whatever gets you up. What do you want from me?"

A tiny smile flickered across his serious features, but he remained serious. "I want you to put on some clothes and shoes."

Gradually, it sank through that he wasn't _joking, _unless he got off on that kind of thing. Everything was possible, but it seemed too complicated for this place's normal clientele.

"Who are you?"

"I knew your husband," he said.

Abbie tensed, a small rush of adrenaline pushed her to her feet, clearing her head. Hope was dangerous, more than any of the men had ever been. It threatened to choke her. "Maurice? Did he sent you? Is he…?"

"He's dead," he interrupted, his deep voice turned even rougher. "I'll explain, but we need to get out first."

He watched her again, silently and she felt judged, but unable to do anything. His tone became softer. "My name's Pearce," he said. "Don't worry, it'll be fine. There are only three men downstairs, I can handle them, no problem. But do you know of any other surprises?"

"N-no, I don't think so," she said, hung her shoulders. "I don't know, I'm sorry."

"It's fine. Just get ready."

She usually didn't bother getting dressed. It made her feel strange, opening the drawer and pulling out a top and a pair of jeans. The clothes barely seemed to belong to her anymore. _Normal _clothes, like a normal woman, in charge of her own life.

A few pairs of high-heels stood in a corner, but her sneakers weren't there.

"I have no good shoes," she said, meekly.

He walked back across the room to the door. She noticed he took care not to get too close to her. She thought she'd shrunk back from him before, but she wasn't even sure. He must have noticed, though.

"It'll do," he assured her. "We got a car ready."

He turned away from her as she dressed, a completely unnecessary gesture, but it was still a relief. She heard him talk on the phone with someone.

"… yeah, we'll be moving in a minute," Pearce said. "Don't hang up. - - - Shit, that was quick…"

Abbie froze at the abrupt change of tone. Pearce turned on his heels and hurried to the window, cast a quick look outside.

"Okay… _no, _don't come here - - - No, but be ready. - - - Follow my lead and come pick us up where I say. - - - Good."

"Something wrong?" Abbie asked, still only half-dressed, her body didn't seem to be working as it should. Perhaps hoping for rescue was foolish, it didn't happen in real life.

Pearce passed a quick glance over her, he raised a finger at her, stalking back to the door.

"Just keep going," he said, transferred the phone to his other hand and drew his gun. He leaned his back into the wall, gaze cast down on his phone. He flicked his thumb over the screen a few times.

Abbie forced her stiff fingers to work faster. It was hard to focus, she saw him only from the corners of her eyes as she pulled the jeans up, it was uncomfortably tight on her bruised skin. She slipped the shirt on and picked the shoes that seemed most comfortable.

He gave her no other directions so she sat down on the bed, waited, fixed on him just in time to see him reach for the key and turn it slowly. It creaked only a little, probably not enough to be heard outside.

Pearce looked back at her quickly, gestured with his phone until she finally took the hint and slipped to her knees beside the bed. He didn't look happy with her position, but he ran out of time to argue. He turned his attention back to the door, adjusted the height of his gun slightly, then fired through the door, twice.

His gun had a silencer screwed on and the sound it made was dull, much quieter than the splintering of cheap wood and the sounds of pain from outside. Pearce didn't wait, he ripped the door open and flew through it. The door hung ajar, but he was momentarily out of sight, Abbie could only hear. Voices, shouting orders to each other, the quiet snap of Pearce's silenced gun and two louder shots, burying into through the wall.

Abbie curled down, pressed to the side of her bed, twitching with every sound she heard, every shot, every thud, every moan of pain or just surprise. It sounded like a fight, short, but brutal, before the sounds tapered off.

"Abbie!" Pearce called, pushed the door open, but remained standing in the doorway. "Listen," he said when she looked up at him from wide eyes.

"Stay with me, but don't get too close. Can you do that?"

She nodded hesitantly, pulled herself up to her feet by the blanket, felt pointlessly reluctant to let go of it. Pearce gave her a last, critical look, but said nothing. He dipped back out the door and Abbie had no option but follow him.

Five men were scattered in the hallway, some were still alive, but they were all clearly out of commission. Pearce ignored them as he headed for the stairwell. Abbie stepped around them carefully. She recognised some of them, handlers and bouncers for Fisher.

She kept Pearce in her sight, tried to make sense of some of what he was doing with the phone in one hand, constantly glancing down on it. She followed him down the stairs and stopped when he gestured her to, pressed her back into the wall hard, like pushing right through.

Men came up the stairs, hurried steps, careless. Pearce leaned down over the stair rail, took aim and fired, shifted the angle and shot again, followed by a shocked yell, the dull sound of bodies hitting the floor and someone else hastily drawing back through a door.

Pearce ran down and Abbie saw him kicked the door open again, duck low just in time to avoid a round of shot. She heard the low sound of his silenced gun, a scream, a thud. Still poised in the open doorway, Pearce gripped hold of another man, pulled him in close and knocked him out with a head-butt.

He glanced up at her, nodded and Abbie moved down slowly, picking up speed only when he did. She'd been wrong about him, Abbie thought, he wasn't dangerous, he was _terrifying. _Abbie knew these men in the hallways, they were Club soldiers, enforcers, no strangers to violence of every kind, but they seemed to barely slow him down. Abbie didn't feel sorry for any of these men, but she didn't think she'd ever seen anyone fight with such ruthless efficiency. He didn't care if he killed or just maimed, but he took them out of the fight for good in whatever way presented itself.

On the ground floor, he gestured for her to stop. A makeshift office had been set up in the hallway just by the main door, expanded by breaking out some walls to nearby apartments. The few times Abbie had seen it, everything had had a makeshift appearance, about to come crashing down just like the rest of the building.

Pearce didn't seem to like the spot she'd chosen, looked around briefly and said, "Over there," and pointed with his phone. "Wait."

She scampered to the spot, hidden behind a broken couch someone had dumped in the hallway. Bewildered and overwhelmed, she watched as he did something on his phone and a few moments later a series of small explosions echoed down the hallway. They were not strong enough to really shake the building, but Abbie felt some faint vibration in the wall she was pressed against. She heard more screams and finally figured out why they were strange. People screamed all the time here, but they usually weren't male voices.

Pearce didn't wait for the noise to die down. He raced down the hall and around the corner and though Abbie stayed put behind the couch, her overactive mind filled in the details in gory, colourful precision. The explosions had shaken the men lying in ambush, knocked some of them out and set others on fire, rendering them unpredictable, but easy targets. Pearce could duck behind a piece of wall, left standing as a pillar to support the ceiling. The bullets made a dark, crunching sound as they ripped into it. Pearce could use the moment to shoot himself, with much better aim than them. Abbie pictured the small, perfect circles in their foreheads.

She twitched when something crashed and she didn't know what it was. Someone falling into a table, she decided, the chairs skittering aside and whatever was on the table shattered to the ground. She heard someone yelling, a groan that broke into a pained scream, a curse that was quickly silenced.

Around the corner, she heard Pearce say, "I'm seeing sixteen out front, are there any more?"

He walked back around the corner, phone and gun in his hand as he spoke with his partner. He caught Abbie's wide-eyed gaze and motioned her to follow. "Right," he said and seemed to think.

Abbie stepped around the corner to see the carnage she'd pictured, there was nothing there that'd contradict her version, but she had forgotten to add in the stench of burning flesh, or that some of the men were still moving, shivering or crawling away.

"Fucking bitch!" someone groaned from the side, made a lunge for her leg. On some strange reflex, Abbie stepped down on his hand with the heel of her shoe as hard as she could. The man shrieked, nearly tore her from her feet in his frenzy to get away.

Pearce came close, gripped her upper arm and pulled her away, gave the man a kick to make him draw back.

Still speaking on the phone, Pearce said, "We'll take a window and make a run for it. Come pick us up at the corner of Wilton/Wrightwood. - - - I know, it'll work."

He turned to Abbie, "There are about twenty men waiting outside. I don't know why they haven't moved in yet, but that's just a question of time. There are others at the back, but not as many. We don't have a lot of time, so stay close and keep your head down. Did you understand that?"

Abbie found her mouth had gone dry and she wouldn't be able to speak up, even if she knew anything to say. Other girls and some of their clients had appeared behind them slowly edging forward, more confused and frightened than Abbie herself. Pearce ignored them, but Abbie looked back at them, hoping for an answer.

Pearce made a low growl in his throat, and added, "Come on, move it."

He gripped her arm again, pulled her along so hard she stumbled and toppled into him, but he held up as if her weight was nothing. The gaze he dropped on her had weight, an instant only, but enough to assess her entire state of being, her entire history and he didn't look at her like a rescuer at all. He didn't let that moment last, either, and only ushered her into a room opened the window, leaned out to check, but then stepped back to let her go first.

His gaze was glued to his phone again, she guessed he received some information on it, but it seemed oddly obsessive of him, considering he'd just kickstarted a firefight. Worse, something must have made the Club guys appear in force like this…

Abbie climbed out of the window, inelegantly with straining, sore muscles and stood in the narrow alley between the two buildings. Pearce swung out beside her. Before he could touch and guide her again, she stepped back, still within reach, but he took his arm away and said, "That way."

She couldn't pick up much speed on the uneven ground, but she was used to walking in high heels. It wasn't fun, but she could do it and Pearce's presence behind her kept pushing her forward.

"How many?" he asked.

She slowed down to look at him, he put the flat of his hand on her back, a very slight touch this time, but enough to keep her moving. He was talking again, "No, don't, I'll handle it."

The alley opened to a street, but before she could step out on it, Pearce yanked her back. She followed the direction of his gaze and saw a dark red car parked on the end of the street, three men got out and hefted their guns, spread out slowly in all directions. The driver got out last and stayed with the car.

"What's going on?" Abbie asked.

"They recognised me," Pearce said, shrugged. "Good."

"How's that good?" Abbie asked and saw Pearce tilt his head to the side a little and smile.

"There's an echo here," he commented. He grew serious again. "It's the plan, let's stick with it," he said and Abbie guessed it was for her as much as for whoever he was talking to on the phone. "I need to jam the ctOS signal for the neighbourhood, don't want the cops interfering. I'll get back to you."

A tap on his phone later and Pearce gestured for Abbie to stay put. He edged forward a little, crouched low behind a row of dumpsters. Abbie watched him take aim and fire. She didn't see the men he hit, but he fired four times and she could do the math. He glanced back at her and said, "Run across the street, make for that alley."

Abbie ran and tried very hard not to slow down when she saw two more cars cut around the corner down the street. It wasn't far, but with every step, the distance seemed to stretch. She didn't know what Pearce was doing, she didn't dare look back.

The cars' tyres screeched on the asphalt as they stopped. She was halfway across when they started shooting, a few random shots in her direction, answered by the quiet bite of Pearce's gun.

Abbie made the alley, breathing hard. She turned around saw Pearce in the middle of the street, arm extended and firing, gun and phone extended. He glanced her way and then threw himself around to break into a run when he realised she was safe. Up on the street, something exploded, far louder than the small explosions in the house. It hit one of the cars and must have broken the fuel tank, because the car went up in a fireball.

"How did you…?" Abbie started, watching the surviving Club soldiers leapt away from the wreck of the car.

"Go!" Pearce snapped at her. "Turn right at the end!"

She ran down this new alley, Pearce close behind.

"- - - yep," he said and the fact that he was running barely made it into his voice. "Small change of plan. We're heading for Schubert Street. - - - Yeah."

Abbie turned right and ran through a badly kept backyard until she was out on the street again, turned right like he'd told her. Cars were parked here. The explosion and shots from earlier had pulled people from their homes, though not nearly as many. It wasn't a good neighbourhood, too much interest in whatever shit went down wasn't healthy here and not nearly unusual enough to warrant the risk.

Another dark car turned into the street just ahead, several others behind it. Abbie yelped in shock, slowed and skittered to the side, behind a parked car. She looked back, spotted Pearce with his back to her. A car was driving right at him, but he must have figured he couldn't dodge away fast enough. He shot the driver, instead and the car veered off sharply. He threw himself to the side and the car missed him narrowly. Pearce rolled back to his feet and whirled around, spotted the other cars ahead.

"Stay out of sight!" he yelled at his unseen partner. He ran past Abbie with only a quick gesture to make her follow.

Abbie hesitated, but when Pearce didn't slow down she had no choice. She was either with him, or she stayed behind and then what? Fisher and the Club, she doubted they'd welcome her back with open arms after all of this. They probably didn't care for one girl, she wasn't special, but this…? Whatever it was, it had something to do with _her_ and Fisher wouldn't just let it go.

She followed Pearce, dodging forward behind the parked cars and dumpsters and some length of rusted fence, but she lost her rhythm and stumbled when she saw Fisher.

Fisher had got out of one of the cars, broad shoulders displayed inside a smartly tailored suit, sunglasses cooly dropped to the tip of his nose as he surveyed the space around him. Club soldiers all around him, moving forward carefully while their cars blocked the street.

"You aren't really out of sight," Pearce scolded. "- - - Not yet. - - -." He sighed. "No, stay there. I can work with it."

Pearce pulled Abbie down by his side behind a low garden wall and a dumpster.

"Behind them," he said. "Do you see the white car?"

Abbie leaned out of cover tentatively. The car he mentioned had drawn up behind the barricade, parked across the street from them and the Club soldiers either hadn't noticed it or ignored it.

"Yes," Abbie said slowly.

"That's our ride. I'll draw their attention, you make for the car."

He seemed to listen to something and said, "I'm sending Abbie your way. Be ready and unlock the trunk. - - - I'm always serious."

He paused or a moment, looked at Abbie. "Are _you_ ready?"

"No," she said. "But I'll never be, anyway."

"You'll make it," he assured her, but it was barely more than a phrase to him, she could tell.

"Why are you helping me?" she asked. "You don't know me." It seemed like a reasonable question, though somewhat belated in the grander scheme of things. Maurice knew some shady people, but Pearce somehow didn't seem to be one of them. Besides, he'd said Maurice was dead, a piece of information that didn't quite seem to compute for her.

Pearce had already been about to move, but now he settled back down by her side. He gave his phone a quick glance, but then focussed on her, _really _on her for the first time since he'd walked into her room.

"I know what Fisher is," Pearce said. "Maurice… I couldn't help him. I'm making up for that."

"Is he really dead?"

"Yes," Pearce narrowed his eyes, glanced back at his phone, then along the street. "We don't have time right now. Just trust me a little longer."

He barely waited for her hesitant nod, completely fixed on his phone again. She could tell by his expression something wasn't quite right even before he muttered a quiet curse. His fingers flew over the screen.

Abbie leaned a little out of cover again, spotted Fisher and the others. Fisher had stepped forward, in front of the cars and gestured like a conductor. His men were making their way carefully down the road, checking behind every piece of garbage large enough to hide anyone, behind every parked car and inside every shadowed doorway.

"They're coming closer," she said.

"I know," he growled. "Their radios use a new encryption. I haven't seen it before, I'll just need another second."

Abbie wrapped her arms around herself, hunkered down closer to the dumpster. Not seeing them made it worse, but she didn't dare look in case they spotted her. If anything, Pearce's tapping sped up.

"Ah," he finally said and a triumphant grin passed over his face. He got up and looked at her.

"At the count of five," he said. "You don't look at me, or them or Fisher, just get in the car, okay?"

She pulled herself up, drew deep breaths, but the air barely got past the lump in her throat.

"Okay," she said hoarsely.

He tapped the screen of his phone and she almost expected another explosion, something even bigger this time, but there was nothing like that, though she heard several surprised screams of pain all along the street, some shots, too, but not aimed at them.

Pearce counted down and Abbie didn't think, she just did as he told her to. She dipped around the corner of the dumpster and broke into a run. Part of her expected to be greeted by a hail of bullets, unnecessarily because she'd be easy to take down and more useful alive and comparatively unblemished. There was nothing, though. The Club soldiers she'd seen before, they all were occupied with themselves, bending over, ripping at their ears with clawed fingers, whimpering.

Despite what Pearce told her, she couldn't help but see what was going on around her. Pearce has broken from cover on the other side of the dumpster, closer to the centre of the street. His gun was ready, but he didn't seem to need it. He was fast, too, in the few precious moments it took the Club soldiers to get their earpieces out and reorient themselves, Pearce made it to the barricade.

Fisher hung over the hood of his car, cursing colourfully. He pulled himself up when he spotted Pearce coming at him. Pearce swung his arm and a length of unyielding metal extended in his hand. Barely slowing down, Pearce slammed it into the back of Fisher's legs. Fisher howled in enraged surprise, couldn't do anything but buckle. He caught himself on the hood of his car. Pearce whirled around and swung the baton down at the nape of his neck, then closed in.

He tossed Fisher over the hood, caught his hands and slammed a pair of handcuffs on him before Fisher had time to even react.

Abbie ran past the barricade finally. The white car had moved from it's parking spot, turned and as she made for it, she saw the driver lean back and open the door.

Abbie scrambled in the backseat just as the car burst forward jaggedly, enough speed to make a half-turn. Abbie sat up dazedly, spotted a young, dark-skinned woman in the driver's seat who glanced over her and gave her a tense smile. She then reached down and pulled a switch, made the trunk spring open.

As she leaned out to catch the door and pull it closed, Abbie caught a glimpse of Pearce dragging Fisher along. He tossed him into the trunk, slammed it shut and rounded the car, threw himself into the passenger seat. Behind them, the Club soldiers had recovered, fired some random shots in their direction, but were heading back to their cars.

"Let's go, let's go!" Pearce ordered sharply, strapped the seat belt on.

The driver hit the gas and they shot down the street, just ahead of the Club soldiers.

* * *

_End of _Loose Ends – Part 1_


	42. Loose Ends - Part 2

**Warning: **Torture (and Aiden is a dirty liar, but that's nothing new)

* * *

**_Loose Ends – Part 2**

* * *

When Donna had still been young and naive, she'd sometimes been the getaway driver for her petty criminal of a boyfriend. It was robbing liquor stores and gas stations or drugstores. Anything he thought didn't have a lot of security going for it. He'd go in, do his thing and dash out, dive into the car and off they were, lost in the night before the store owner had any idea what was going on. CCTV had already been in place in many parts of Chicago, but there had been enough holes in it to squeeze through. She was a good driver, but she wasn't sure any of it really counted when being chased by three Club cars, with a manager of illegal brothels in the trunk and a large-calibre criminal riding shotgun.

She tried very hard not to enjoy it, and in truth, she didn't have a lot of time to waste on running some additional narrative in her head. She was going too fast in a residential area, many of the side streets were narrowed, parked cars on either side leaving just enough room to push through with just some minor scratches.

Aiden's control over ctOS opened the path for them, turned traffic lights just ahead, opened barriers, lowered boulders just to snap them back up right behind them. The Club soldiers didn't dare shoot at them, their boss was in the trunk and hitting him too much of a risk. Aiden had no such qualms. He dropped his phone into his pocket, pulled out a rifle and leaned out of the open window.

Donna saw Abbie in the rear-view mirror, just a snapshot, it was all she had time for. Abbie looked too confused to even be scared. A hand was wrapped around the grip by the door, pulled tight and shaking. Donna thought she was holding up surprisingly well. She hadn't been too keen on most of Aiden's plan, not least of all because she wasn't sure Abbie could handle it.

Aiden hadn't shared all parts of his calculation, but it was easy to guess he needed to save Abbie himself. It wouldn't be enough just to watch from the sidelines and make sure no corrupted cops stepped in.

Aiden had hacked into their pursuers radios and their voices came over the car's speakers, live commentary on just how badly the chase was going for them. It would be amusing, if she could stop worrying about some hapless pedestrian walking out in front of her. She would never be able to stop in time.

A turn took them out of sight for a moment and Aiden climbed back inside, dropped the spend magazine and snapped a fresh one in.

"Take the next right turn and head straight down. We make Cemak Bridge and we'll shake them."

She yanked the car around the corner, scratched over the — thankfully empty — sidewalk, she steadied the car and used the momentary respite to glance at Aiden. It was too quick to get a good look at him, but she said, "Are you sure? Maybe you want to play with them some more?"

He pulled his phone out again, tapped something, then looked up. The GPS come on, filled the small monitor in the centre stack. It pointed her straight ahead.

She heard the smirk in his voice. "So that's what you think of me," he remarked.

"Yes, apparently you don't deserve it at all," she said. She felt the speed of the car through the wheel in her hand and the seat under her.

He laughed, but it got caught in his throat.

"Stop!" he yelled and Donna stepped on the brake without a second thought. Their momentum pushed them into a crossroads. Aiden had yanked the handbrake and it made the car's rear push further, turned them slightly and just enough for a dark car coming from the left to sheer past them at full speed.

The car stopped a little further down, made a small turn and a burst of shots tore through the front of the car. The engine stuttered, then died. Donna opened her hands on the wheel, struggling with the realisation that the car had just been rendered useless.

"Get behind the car!" Aiden yelled. It shook her back immediately, she kicked open the door and rolled out into a crouch. Abbie didn't have the presence of mind. She'd curled up, but didn't move. Donna edged forward until she could open the door. Abbie didn't resist when she was dragged out.

Aiden hadn't lingered. With the phone still in his hand, he'd jumped out, brandishing the assault rifle. The Club soldiers had taken cover behind their car, rather than use the moment to shoot Aiden. Some tap on his phone and a moment later Donna heard someone curse from down the street, joined by other screams. Peering around the car, she saw a man throw something small away and it exploded before it hit the ground.

By then, Aiden was on them. He fired a burst into the nearest soldier's torso, downing him, then dropped down before he could be hit himself.

Donna withdrew back to Abbie.

"What's going on?" Abbie asked. "Why are they all after us?"

Donna arched her brows. "Well, they aren't after _us _exactly_," _she said, but wasn't sure Abbie would take it as reassurance.

They'd made it to Brandon Docks, less pedestrian traffic, but more trucks and vans clogging up the street. A truck had stopped down the street, blocked what cars there were behind it. The driver had got out and taken cover. A handful of other people had congealed on the sidewalk, most of them either keeping their head down or already fleeing.

Donna spotted an old Vespid HMI parked just inside an open gate. She looked back at Abbie and gave her a quick smile. "I'll just find us another car, I won't be long."

Donna cast another glance down the street, caught a glimpse of Aiden tangling briefly with a Club soldier while two others were making a run for cover behind a shipping container at the side. Aiden kicked free and when the soldier stumbled, Aiden brought his gun up and shot him in the head.

No one was looking their way. Donna kept in a crouch as she left the dubious cover of the car, then straightened when she reached the wall surrounding the factory site. She hurried along, hesitated in the gate, but no one was there. The factory seemed to be closed, shuttered up and abandoned. The parked Vespid couldn't be seen by the onlookers, even if they weren't captivated by the more interesting firefight just down the street.

The car was locked and Donna had to smash in a window with a brick. She brushed the broken glass from the seat before she got in, dragged the plastic covering loose and leaned down to fish for the right wires. It had been too long since she'd done this sort of thing, but it came back easily enough. It was perhaps not something she should put on her resumé when she finally got around to apply for a steady position with the CPD.

She listened with half an ear to what was going on around her. The chattering of Aiden's gun, the slightly different and multi-toned noise from soldiers' weapons. She didn't think Aiden ever considered the possibility of his own death when he did things like that. He was too smart not to know, so she supposed it must be because he didn't quite care enough.

In a moment of silence, she looked up, even though she knew there was nothing to see. It occurred to her just how easily Aiden sold her on that idea, too. He mattered to her, in ways she didn't know how to put into words. But she never managed to be afraid for him.

The Vespid's ignition finally sparked and the engine gave a dark roar as she gave it a little more gas. She pulled the door closed.

She drove the Vespid out of the yard, parked it behind their shot up car and left the engine to idle. Getting out, she leaned over the door and watched. Aiden had dispatched the last soldiers without any visible scratches, but some of their backup had arrived. A second car had just swerved to a halt beside the first. Aiden had turned away from them, he was out in the open in the middle of the street, too far from cover in all directions. Something was wrong in his step, but before Donna had time to place it, Aiden stopped. He didn't turn back fully, just twisted his torso and fired a burst, aimed toward the ground, not the Club soldiers.

A large puddle had formed under the first car, expanding across the cracks in the asphalt. Aiden's bullets skipped on the ground, cut a trail of sparks across the gasoline puddle and set it ablaze. The fire ate up the puddle within seconds, consumed the car and lunged for the other.

Aiden turned his back on them, walked around the broken car for Donna and the Vespid. They exchanged a smile and she saw some kind of mischief spark in his eyes when he saw her.

Behind him, the fire found the fuel tank and send the car up in a fireball, it curled in on itself, forming a mushroom, spewing pitch-black smoke into the sky. The shockwave of the explosion picked up the second car and pushed it off track, a gust of hot wind rolled outward in all directions. Heat and dust made Donna squint, she turned her head away, but couldn't take her eyes off the spectacle. The second car's tyres ruptured in the heat. Only two of the men inside were getting out, scrambling away in case their car ignited, too.

Donna hurried around to pick up Abbie and usher her into the backseat. Fisher was struggling and the Vespid's trunk was tiny, but he seemed too exhausted to put up much of a fight as Aiden stuffed him in roughly.

"Nice ride," Aiden said as he slipped into the passenger seat. He had a small patch of blood soiling his thigh around the rips of his jeans, but it was't enough blood to worry about.

"That's what I thought," Donna said, brushed over her eyes with the back of her hand to clear her vision. She got behind the wheel again, brought the car around and manoeuvred it carefully through the rapidly building traffic jam, but by the time the first emergency calls went out, they were long gone.

* * *

The memories chased her down the stairs, clinging to her ankles with icy fingers, trying to make her stumble, or just hesitate.

_Vincent Fisher doesn't like girls. He doesn't like boys, either. He's better than that, superior. He holds his clients and his staff in equal contempt, though the latter slightly less so, at least they never _chose _to burn their fortunes on loose cunts or underaged faggots. In many ways, it makes him perfect to run a fetish club for the mob. There's no pretty face that'd sway him, he presents too few weaknesses to be manipualted. _

_He wraps the wire around her throat and pulls tight, pulls her back until her head rests on his chest. Her nostrils fill with the scent of expensive cologne and she feels the delicate fabric of his designer suit against her. Her fingers dig into her own skin, a reflex she can't stop even though she knows she won't be able to free herself. _

_It's not pain so much as the fear of it, that gives Fisher his power. She's only been here a week and he's already breaking her. Already, she catches herself thinking of _not fighting back, _of taking her anger at Iraq and Lucky and swallow it down, like the men who make use of her mouth, but pride is a hard thing to overcome and Fisher sees it in her. _

_If he'd beaten her to a pulp, she could've taken it, if he'd raped six ways from Sunday, she was expecting no less, but this? This cruel, delicate game of his. And she understands it, she knows what he's doing, but it doesn't _help. _He's rewriting her on some fundamental level, beyond hope of recovery. If she walks away — if — she doesn't know how much of her will still be left. _

_She's not dying. _

_Just before she passes out, he releases the wire, just enough for her stupid lungs to suck air back in, pull her back into wakefulness. It makes her wish he'd get it wrong, just once. So she fell unconscious, set free from it for just a few moments. _

_Out there in the rest of the world, she's too stubborn and too proud to even entertain death, but in a room with Fisher it's a sweet promise of release. He's making a point, he doesn't like the way she holds herself, he disapproves of how she controls the clients. In the Infinite 92, that's not what a girl is supposed to be doing at all. _

_She can't breathe, can't think and vicious black dots swim in her vision. The brief respite he gives her is not enough to clear her head. She hates how she rests against him. She hates how her arms have lost their strength and the kicking of her legs is feeble and useless. _

_"You'll see, my love," he says with a calm amusement in his voice. _

_Something wet slides down her face, tears and blood from where she's scratched herself, spit kicked up into foam from the corners of her gaping mouth_.

_In rare moments of peace, she still convinces herself she'll get through this. She's not _weak, _but the conviction feels more distant every moment she spends there. She feels the way Fisher tightens the muscles in his arms and pulls tight again and the panic comes in a tidal wave, beating against the shore of her sanity. _

Aiden's safe-house was small and tidy in a good neighbourhood in Parker Square. The garden was well-kept, the lawn had recently been mowed and the air was filled with the fresh scent of cut grass.

Some last few rays of sunset light crawled down the steps and stalked her into the basement, but they couldn't turn the corner into the empty room Aiden had dropped Fisher in. It was too empty, she thought, she could hear his voice in her head.

_"I'll leave a scar this time, I think," Fisher muses sweetly in her ear. "The clients will love it. It makes you look like you've been used. You should use it as a reminder, too. You keep forgetting who's in charge around here." _

Fisher was on the ground, handcuffed and with zip-ties around his legs, a rag stuffed into his mouth and black tape across it.

She could tell he'd been struggling before she walked in, but he stilled abruptly when he saw her. Bruises had formed in his face, some blood from a wound she couldn't see, perhaps from being thrown around in the trunk, some ricochetting bullet grazing him. His suit was dirty and dishevelled, sweat-damped hair fell into his face and obscured his expression.

She stepped forward and ripped the tape away, got back up and out of reach as Fisher spat out the rag.

"I don't believe in revenge," she said and her voice was barely a whisper.

Fisher studied her, composed despite his situation, but he'd never been a man easily awed or cowed. He summoned a leer and let it slide over her.

"Damn, Poppy, my love," he chuckled wetly, spat a gob of blood and saliva on the ground in front of him. "The _vigilante? _You got the _vigilante_ working for you?" He shook his head, more to himself. "I _kept_ telling Lucky keeping you as a whore was a waste. You weren't even a very good one."

Through the white noise at the back of her head, Donna realised she'd have to watch the video Aiden had recovered. She couldn't bear not knowing what he was seeing in his head every time he looked at her.

"You fucked up," she said tonelessly.

Fisher chuckled. "It's hard to argue with that," he managed an awkward shrug in his bound position. "It's all been going down the drain, anyway. Niall isn't half the man his father was. He'll just blow it eventually, mark my words."

He thought for a moment, "And me? What's to become of me, my love?"

"I don't know," she said honestly. She had been afraid seeing him again would make her feel powerless, the way she had felt under his control, but instead she had trouble scrape together any emotion at all.

"How about you let me go, then?" Fisher offered with a hoarse, ironic laugh. "My loyalty just went up for sale. And you know what I always say, don't you? Everyone's a whore for the right price."

"What do you have to offer?"

"Oh, are we already negotiating?"

Donna shook her head slowly. "No," she said.

She took one careful step forward, a dull thud on the rough ground. Fisher shifted a little, trying to keep her in his sight, perhaps it was even the beginning of some defence he was too immobilised to muster.

"Are you afraid of me?" she asked as she watched him.

Fisher laughed again, "I don't _do_ afraid. But you're sharp. Why do you think I worked you so hard? So you didn't get to think straight. Healthy respect, I'd call it, not afraid."

She almost laughed at this, but it really wasn't funny. "It didn't feel like respect. Or healthy."

"That was the point," Fisher agreed, tried to shrug again, but his position didn't let him do it. "Lucky was a fool, but I guess he had his reasons for punishing you the way he did."

"I was a scapegoat."

She took another step and Fisher seemed to relax in his bonds, realising he wasn't going anywhere anyway.

"More's the pity," Fisher remarked. "Stupid Lucky. The things you could've done for us. Even the vigilante."

"No."

He shook his head. "Not now, obviously, but back then? Who knows?"

"No," she said again, but the word seemed hollowed out. Her life had changed so much, it was hard to imagine things turning out any other way. So much, in fact, she thought she wouldn't undo anything, even if she could.

"Tell him to be careful," Fisher continued and even the affected hilarity faded under the sudden menace. "The harder he pushes, the harder he'll be hunted. Everyone will want a turn when we finally take him down."

She dropped to her knees right in front of him, folded her hands along his jaw and made him face her.

"That's their mistake," she said, but Aiden barely mattered. He didn't need her to fight his battles for him. The skin on her throat tingled and she had to resist the urge to place her fingers on the scar to make sure it wasn't moving like a living thing.

"You aren't going to die," she said, but it sounded threatening in her own ears and Fisher heard it, too, saw something in her eyes she hadn't meant to put there and his congenial mask began to slip.

Donna wrapped a zip-tie around his throat until it rested snugly against his skin.

"I don't think it'll scar," she said. "I don't think you'll remember, either, but I want to see your face."

It took more effort than she had expected to tighten the zip-tie just right, choke him without killing, make him suffer without letting him pass out.

Fisher jerked and his eyes filled with panic as he realised what was happening. His shoulders worked, but unless he broke his fingers, he wouldn't get out of the handcuffs and he wouldn't have the presence of mind to contemplate it. His face turned a deep shade of crimson, blotched with blue and white. Eyes bulging and tongue lolling, he looked entirely ridiculous.

She watched him for a few minutes, but nothing much changed. He gagged and coughed and writhed on the ground in a useless attempt to free himself, to force more air down his lungs despite the constriction. She thought he was trying to say something, but he couldn't form words. It was better this way, she didn't know if she wanted to hear him beg or not.

Abruptly, Donna turned around and left, stepped through the door.

The sunset had faded by then, had been replaced by the murky residue of light, a single lightbulb was offering a weak replacement brightness, barely enough to see by.

Aiden stood at the bottom of the stairs, she felt him watching her as she watched him in turn. In a rush, she crossed over to him, fisted a hand into the worn-out fabric of his shirt and tugged him into a rough kiss. She wouldn't have been able to explain why, if someone had been there to ask, other than because she needed something to overpower the buzzing in her ears. It felt the same way, the same rush of blood in her head, setting her nerve-ends on fire, but even the slow slide of lips and tongue wasn't enough, so she turned it into a bite, sheered her teeth along the side of his mouth.

Aiden wrapped his hands around her waist, dragged her hips against his. The hold on his shirt was too feeble, so she brought her other hand up, clawed at the back of his neck.

She'd left the door ajar and the presence of Fisher beat itself back into her awareness, one ugly, rattling cough at a time. She bit Aiden's tongue, let him go just long enough to moan into his mouth. She was grinding into him, wanted him to finally move, take a step back or to the side to where there was a wall to fuck against…

Fisher grunted, whined desperately and she didn't _want _him there, didn't want him to taint this, no matter how sickly satisfying it might seem. She drew back a fraction, sucked in a harsh gulp of air and let her eyes fall closed, leaned her head against Aiden without moving.

"Make him stop," she whispered.

Aiden stepped out of her embrace too fast, she barely managed to snap her hand up and catch his arm, make him turn back to her.

She said, "I _mean, _I want him in jail, nothing else."

It was surprisingly hard to bear his scrutiny in that moment, incomprehension and maybe even disapproval, but he didn't say anything. He gave her a barely perceptible nod and she let go of him.

He vanished through the door and after a moment, Fisher's rattling subsided into a mere whimper, coughing as his freed throat worked to bring air back into his lungs. She wondered briefly if it had been worth it. What had been the point? Retribution? But that should make her feel better and it did, just not as much as she'd thought it would. Her skin itched, not just on her throat, all over her body.

* * *

Some kind of muffling veil still seemed to be wrapped around her ears as she leaned her back against the counter in the kitchen, watched Aiden and Abbie face each other across the table. She'd set water to boil in a badly limed up electric kettle and the long time it took would be annoying if anyone, herself included, actually cared about it. It was a backdrop, a minor distraction to take the edge of.

Donna listened to Aiden talking, he was close enough she could just reach out and touch his shoulder, his voice drifted to her from very far away. She saw only the side of his face, but she knew the tone of his voice. She knew he was _lying. _Not always, not even at the core of what he was saying, but the version of events he set out for Abbie ws riddled with omissions, miss-leading half-truths, misrepresentations and deflections.

Donna knew he'd killed Maurice, but he never said it. She knew he wasn't sorry, but he sounded sincere when he offered his sympathies. He spoke slowly, deep voice soothing against the low, grating buildup of the kettle.

Abbie was still throughout, frozen in her seat and even her face was stone. Aiden had offered her to shower first, take a break, a nap on the couch or even a full-nights undisturbed sleep, but she had refused. Donna wasn't sure if it was the right choice, but she understood the reason for it.

"He's dead," Abbie said, the confirmation she needed for herself.

"There was no way to save him," Aiden said and even Donna didn't know if that was true or not. If bellwether had broken Maurice's mind the way Aiden had explained, perhaps death had been a mercy. It didn't count, though, because it hadn't _been_ an act of compassion at all.

Abbie buried her face in her shaking hands, eerily silent as her shoulders twitched, fighting for composure she was too exhausted to regain. The water boiled up, then slowly settled back down, forgotten the moment it happened.

Aiden watched Abbie for a long time, as she struggled with herself, shoulders pulled in, face hidden, looking desperately for a way to express her grief before it tore her apart. He reached for her, carefully, just a slight touch on her arm, giving her all the chance in the world to pull away, or just to ignore him completely. She didn't, however. Even that light touch was enough to shatter her, but it set her free, too. She folded against him and finally started crying, heaving sobs wreaking her entire body.

Aiden still hesitated, but her anguish made him put an arm around her in the end, a careful touch, she might as well be made of cracked porcelain.

* * *

A few days later, a gentle summer wind whispered in the trees around the cemetery. Set back from the street, it was peaceful, a calm sort of sorrow that ached, but didn't seem too terrible to bear.

Donna followed the path away from Lena's grave and stopped by Aiden's side. His gaze moved over her, then followed back the way she'd come, looked at the cheerful yellow flowers she'd left there and said nothing. After a time, he seemed to force himself to let it go, turned away and turned his gaze on Abbie, where she was kneeling at Maurice's grave.

"Maurice…" Aiden said, breaking his long silence, but he seemed to be barely speaking to Donna. "He took the shot that day. If he hadn't… Lena would still be alive, but now… I don't know what choice he really had."

He fell silent, laughed sadly.

"She was a wild child. Lena," he continued, as his laugh broke at the memory. "She loved scary stuff. She loved it when we went camping up in Pawnee and it got dark and you heard all the weird noises around? She didn't want to sleep, just sit at the campfire all night, making up stories about mythical monsters and lost Indian tribes. She wanted to go play hide and seek at two in the morning. I think I was far more scared than she was, that I could lose her out there."

"She sounds a lot like you."

"And like Nicky, too. Jacks… he's always been more thoughtful, but he's changed since she died. Trying to compensate for her absence, I think. We all changed."

He put his head back, eyes closed and the muscles in his jaw clenching as he fought to compose himself. He shook his head, flexed his shoulders and breathed a long sigh. "If Maurice hadn't taken that shot…"

Donna's gaze wandered over to Lena's grave and then further, to where Abbie was still kneeling at Maurice's. She didn't notice when looked down at her, still something raw in his face and a treacherously wet glint in his eyes.

"What about you?" he asked. "How are you doing?"

She surprised herself with an unimpressed snort, but she had to take a deep breath before she trusted her voice enough to speak. "Not very different. I still have the same scars, I still have the same memories. It's good that Fisher won't be able to hurt anyone again for a long time, but… I'm the same. It's all the same."

"There's room here for another grave."

She shook her head, found herself smiling a little at the absurdity of it. None of these sorry events suggested death was a solution for anything.

She said, "I don't want to kill him." She looked at him, caught the change in his expression and forestalled him, "And you're not my personal hit-man."

She shook her head, "Let it be over," she said, but it wasn't as easy as she'd expected it to. "My past will come up again every so often, but I've got to move on. Heal, you know?"

Aiden turned his head to meet her gaze. She knew him well enough by now to suspect when he wasn't entirely truthful, but his expression was still mild, softened by the memory of his niece and perhaps placated by recent events.

He said, "Whatever you need."

He hesitated another moment, then reached for her, slipped hand down her back, around her waist. He pulled her gaze along to Abbie, who was just pulling herself back to her feet. Her shoulders were tense, shivering slightly, but she was visibly trying to collect herself.

"Will she be alright?" Aiden asked.

"Well," Donna said. "For now, she can stay in a woman's shelter and they'll get her into therapy. If she'll ever be 'alright' again, I can't tell you."

"She doesn't have any other family, it'll be hard. If there's something I can do, _anything, _just let me know."

Aiden's phone buzzed. Donna recognised the sound as some kind of alarm. Aiden pulled it out, but glanced at it only briefly, then looked up and scanned his surroundings before he looked down on the phone again. He sighed quietly.

"I should leave," he said and contradicted himself by squeezing her closer to him.

Donna smiled a little. "Come by tonight, I'll cook us something."

"I didn't know you cooked."

"Well, I know _you _don't, and I'm in the mood for some peace and quiet, so I can't take you out in public. _And _we both should eat something other than takeout once in a while."

Aiden slanted his head down, kissed her slowly, but then drew back when his phone buzzed again.

"No need to convince me," he said. "I'm already sold."

* * *

Vincent Fisher took stock of the small room while he waited for his lawyer. Two corners had cameras and a futuristic-looking lock and intercom at the door. No doubt there were other surveillance measures in place, the ones that wouldn't be turned off when he spoke with his lawyer. Those wouldn't be usable in court, but it still gave the cops an edge in their investigation. Everyone who thought something else needed a crash-course in paranoia.

The door opened to admit a grey-suited man inside. He waited while the door was closed and the signal lights on the cameras turned off. The man took two crisp steps to the table, set his briefcase down and snapped it open. He watched Fisher and seemed to be waiting for something. Clean-shaven and professionally smooth, Fisher took a long moment before he identified him.

"It's you!" Fisher announced, though there was no one here who could hear. Pearce probably had blocked all surveillance, even the covert one.

Pearce bent him a smirk as he sat down, pulled out his phone and set it on the table.

"Do you know this woman?" he asked.

Fisher hesitated, gaze digging into Pearce, gauging him, before he dropped it to the phone. Fisher bared his teeth.

"Yes, I do. Damn that girl," he growled. He pointed in the air, "This one? Too fucking smart for a whore. The trouble just never ends with that kind. Can't trust them, can't let them out of your sight. You'll never know what they're plotting behind your back. They don't respect you, they just _pretend." _

He stopped, looked back up at Pearce. "But she always did like big fish, but I didn't think she'd manage to reel you in. Always pegged you for one of my kind, you know. But I guess that makes me feel a little better. You're just like rest of them, thinking with your dick."

Pearce settled back in his chair, pensive gaze on Fisher and his expression unreadable.

"Wrong answer," he said. "We'll try again."

Fisher chuckled, pulled his own chair back and sat down, leaned forward with the same leer. "That's cute. You're scared I'll ID her. Of course I will. It's not personal, I almost like the little whore, you know. But she deserves what's coming for her. So do you, by the way. Cops are pretty dumb, of course, but if they get to her, do you think they could get to you?"

Pearce was still for a minute, then swiped the phone up, flicked a thumb across the screen.

"This prison is run quite well," he said calmly. "Putting you in a cell block with mostly Club members, a couple of fixers, lots of unaffiliated. Not a dangerous place for you, keeps the peace."

He glanced up briefly. "But let's imagine you're transferred elsewhere, some bug in the software perhaps." He gestured slightly with the phone, drew a narrow circle before he steadied it. "For example, to a cell block with Militia members. I hear they're in a turf war with the Club, how well do you think you'll do there?"

The sneering expression on Fisher's face slowly faded, though he clearly tried to hold on to it.

"You…" Fisher began, but stopped when Pearce turned the phone back around.

"Do you know this woman?" Pearce asked, same tone he'd used before.

Fisher chuckled. "How could I forget that lovely face?"

"Wrong again." Pearce shrugged. "She's the only reason you're still alive, think on that for a moment."

"I like to spread my misery around and I'm really an ungrateful bastard."

Pearce just kept watching him. "But if you die in some unfortunate prison shower incident, I don't think she'd blame me, do you agree?"

Fisher had opened his mouth, but he snapped his teeth closed instead, only stared back at Pearce. Certainly, Pearce had the means to back up everything he said.

"Now, three's the charm," Pearce said, turned the phone around again. "Do you know this woman?"

Fisher looked at the phone and the picture, compelled even though he'd not see anything new there, face finally settled into concentration as he ran his options through his mind. He looked back at Pearce and tried to smirk or sneer, but the expression was forced.

"Well, if it's that important to you, no, never seen the whore in my life," he said, shrugged. "How about the vigilante, though? Maybe I've seen him? Right here, in the middle of a _prison_."

He arched his brows inquisitively. "Do you even have an exit strategy?"

Pearce didn't seem impressed. He shrugged again, put the phone away and rested his empty hands on the table between them.

"You don't know _her,_" Pearce said. "Be as chatty as you want about me."

Fisher's smirk was coming easier again. He said, "Sure, can't _wait _to start."

Pearce didn't answer, he just stood up and put his briefcase on the table between them, sorted the papers he'd taken out earlier back into it, gave Fisher only a casual glance as he worked. He took a step forward, to the side of the table.

"Don't worry about your lawyer, I just waylaid her for a bit," he said lightly. "She'll be here by the time you wake up."

"By the time… what?"

Realisation hit Fisher at the same time Pearce's hand landed on his shoulder, tucked on his collar and plunged a long syringe into his neck. Fisher struggled to the side, made a half-hearted lunge at Pearce as his vision washed out. He blinked a few times in confusion, then folded forward without a sound. He fell over his own chair and toppled it under him, landing in a messy heap on the floor.

Pearce watched him for a moment, then hid the syringe under the papers in his briefcase and went to the door and activated the intercom.

"I believe my client has just collapsed."

* * *

_End of _Loose Ends_


	43. Sucker's Game - Part 1

**Author's Note: **So, a while back, Hardlight pointed out that Aiden should have his own organisation. At the time, I said it's too much work in terms of writing, but apparently, the idea wasn't going away.

Please note, I didn't post this for two entire days because _the summary sucks. _

Once again, 'Uplink' is really a game by Ambrosia and I'm pretty much hi-jacking the whole thing of it this time.

* * *

[summary: deception is a game with few winners]

[takes place in may 2018]

**_Sucker's Game – Part 1**

* * *

Abbott Island was a strange little part of Chicago. Located within sight of the Loop and only a little further from the Wards and Brandon Docks in the middle of the river, it seemed cut off from the glittering bustle all around it. Blume owned the land, but weren't doing much with it.

Among hackers and like-minded individuals, the existence of the Bunker had become a commonplace, but they, too, weren't making a move. No one knew for sure how deep the connections went, whether ctOS still linked up to its old centre and who was watching it all. It was the spot on the map marked as 'here be dragons'.

Certainly Blume should've been motivated to dismantle everything after Pearce and Kenney used the place as a base of operations. It was good land, it'd fetch a lot of money if Blume offered it on the market, even in the middle of yet another recession, there was enough demand for a new high rise in the middle of Chicago. If Blume wasn't selling, it was because they feared whatever dirty secrets lay buried there to see the light of day. No doubt a justified fear, but they were not doing anything with it themselves, either.

Every so often, development plans surfaced, but they all petered out without much coming from them. Sometimes a rare kind of bird was found to be making its nest in the slowly decaying industrial ruin. Other times, a potential investor found himself facing an unexpected scandal on another front and had to pull out. Sometimes protesters set up shop, demanding the island be made into a park, or converted into affordable housing, or… any number of other things which made the blood boil briefly and was washed away by some newer drama. Abbott Island remained a blind spot, drifting in and out of public awareness.

Mia Perez changed the angle of the screen against the glare of the late evening sun, cutting low through gaps and hollows of the stacked, rusting shipping containers, scaffoldings and crumbling buildings around her. The buzz of the city was a distant humming, far enough away to allow a sense of tranquility to rest over the place. A few birds were chirping in the distance.

She shifted around in her folding chair until it stopped tipping to one side. She was still hot and sweaty, slightly out of breath from her turn at the obstacle course. It was obscenely hot for May, but the soft wind coming from the river helped a little.

A withered camera turned slowly at her command. With one hand, she reached for the cup of iced coffee resting inside an open cool-box. With the other hand, she quickly clicked through the cameras and checked their status.

Strictly speaking, Blume had control of these cameras, but the wiring was a complete mess to anyone who'd ever looked at it closely. Too many hackers and engineers had tampered with it over the years and each one had left tripwires in place for whoever came later. The fact was, if Blume wasn't _supposed_ to see what was going on, they wouldn't. Pearce had his tricks and she doubted she'd seen them all already.

"All set," she said in the general direction of the phone lying by her side. 'Paerce' is said. She'd get around to correcting the spelling, eventually.

_"If you try to cheat again, I'll fire you," _Pearce's voice came over the phone, but despite the threat, he sounded amused.

"Not like you're paying me anyway," she pointed out, sucked the straw of her coffee in her mouth.

_"You earn what you deserve,"_ Pearce chuckled.

"You get what you pay for," she countered. She cycled through the cameras until she spotted Pearce, pacing slowly with one of his hands in his pockets, phone on one ear. His gaze was fixed ahead of him and even through the camera feed, Mia could see him mapping out his way. She moved the camera a bit until the first obstacle came in sight.

"I'm ready, by the way," Pearce said finally, glanced up and stared at the camera, taking his hand from his pocket.

Mia tapped the phone to summon the stop watch. "Okay," she announced. "Three, two, _go!" _

Pearce took a running start, dropped his phone into his pocket as he went to get his hands free just in time to vault over the low concrete boulder, swinging on one arm and landing in a run. It gained him just enough speed to catch the edge of the shipping container. He pulled up and raced along the container, swung around the poles of an old scaffolding smoothly and gained enough speed to take another leap at the end.

Two more containers had been staked up across a narrow gap, but leaving a narrow ledge between the upper and lower. Mia knew from experience just how feeble that ledge felt, because you had only the initial strength of your jump and your fingertips to keep going. Pearce caught the ledge, pulled up, got his feet under him and leapt up to the next container.

Mia switched to the next camera and saw as Pearce jumped down on the other side and onto a pile of old cars, swerved to the side sharply, jumped down one car, but then leapt forward again to make the upper edge of a concrete wall panel. He pulled up and kept his balance easily, picked up speed again, but didn't run all the way to the end. Halfway across, he jumped to the side and caught the lowest rung of the ladder affixed to the crane there. He swung on it, let go and hit the ground running.

Mia had just tabbed the button to switch to the next camera when the telltale sound of a nearby bridge alerted her. There were alarms in place, no one should be able to get on the island without any warnings going off, but such things were never foolproof. She looked down the path from the bridge, only distantly aware of Pearce still moving through the obstacle course.

Pearce's gun holster hung over the back of her chair, the gun within easy reach, but she was out in the open. If it was an attack of some kind, she wasn't going to make it to a cover in time.

A white car came down the path, going a bit too fast for comfort, wheels kicking up dry dust as it stopped not too close. Mia lifted her hand to shield her eyes against the low sun and finally relaxed a bit when she recognised the man who got out of the car.

She kept an eye on him, but had to circle through two cameras until she picked Pearce up again, on top of a pile of containers, jumping a gap and vaulting over the rail of a walkway running the circumference of a building. It momentarily took her full attention. Damn, that route had always seemed the more difficult to her. You had to get up really high and lost time doing it, never mind you'd probably break something if you fell.

A shadow fell across her back.

"I know you," Mia greeted the man and looked up. "You're Pearce's fixer. Jordi, right?"

Jordi wagged a hand in the air between them. "I object to the possessive form," he pointed out and added an elegant shrug. "I belong strictly to myself and my vices."

Mia eyed him and said nothing. She'd seen Jordi only a handful of times and she'd never been alone with him. Jordi was hard to judge and Pearce was sending all sorts of mixed messaged. He obviously distrusted Jordi, but he also genuinely _like _him. Something about the two of them was in a constant, perfect, but precarious balance, ready to tip one way or the other at any moment. Except, it _wasn't _actually tipping at all.

"You called me Pearce's sidekick last time we met," she pointed out, pretending not to be intimidated by him. Jordi looked like white collar crime in an elegant suit, casual confidence and a jaded, laid-back attitude.

Fixers came in all shapes and sizes, but only a select few of them had the bite to last. She had few doubts about this one.

Jordi gave her a toothy grin, "Perfectly accurate description from where I'm standing."

She bit down on her lip and looked back at the screen, glad Jordi seemed interested enough in the display to stop goading her.

Pearce was still high up. He'd left the building behind and was running the length of a container, three containers high. He jumped to the left, to the overturned wreckage of a car. He had to slow down there, as the car rocked under his impact and he had to steady himself. He slid down to the right, hit the ground running, jumped over a wall of old barrels without touching them. He scaled the side of another concrete wall and raced along the top of it.

Two bright red energy drink bottles marked the finish line. Mia took her eyes off the screen and turned to watch Pearce jump down, take a last sprint, vault over a boulder and pick up one of the bottles he went past it.

Dutifully, Mia hit stop on the timer. She didn't want to risk being fired, after all. She'd tried to prank him, once, and he was too good at holding a grudge.

She rested an elbow on the table, watched Pearce slow down and walk the last few steps. He rolled the bottle against his neck before he opened it.

He _seemed _relaxed, but something about his posture was wrong and his attention was almost entirely on Jordi, not her.

"How'd I do?" he asked, breathing hard. Sweat had glued the T-shirt to him, left dark stains under his arms and down the middle of his chest. He'd caught a sunburn a few weeks before, but it was slowly transforming into a tan hiding the flush of the exertion.

"Ten minutes, thirty-two seconds," Mia read out.

Pearce narrowed his eyes and said nothing for a moment.

"Oh," Jordi chuckled. "That's a _bad_ look."

"Used to come in under ten," Pearce growled and took another sip.

"How's that even a complaint?" Mia inquired, more to herself. "I've never done it in less than twelve. I don't even know how you do it! You're always more winded, though."

A small smile tugged on the corners of his mouth. "Yeah, maybe if you gave it your all, I wouldn't keep outrunning you. I'm twice your age and you're starting to embarrass me."

Mia pulled a face in unwilling agreement. Though, it wasn't really a question of his age, or hers. He was at the height of his training, if anything, coming close at all was a mark in her favour. And it wasn't even only about speed, either. He had a knack for mapping out a route quickly and once he committed, he didn't hesitate or second-guess. Besides, he'd built most of the obstacle course himself, of course he'd know all it's little turns and twists.

Still, it was _just _training, more for fun than anything, showing off. It would mean nothing if he couldn't do the same thing over unfamiliar ground and under hostile conditions.

"Speaking of age," Jordi cut in. He made an odd move, as if he was about to clasp an arm around Pearce and thought better of it the same instant. He pulled something small from the pocket of his suit pocket and held it out on the flat of his hand.

Mia stood up to see what it was.

"Consider it a birthday gift," Jordi added. "I wasn't gonna put a bow on it or something, but I wiped the blood off."

"It's your birthday?" Mia asked, surprised.

Pearce only shrugged, "It _was, _couple days ago. Not your problem."

He dropped his gaze to Jordi's hand and Mia caught the sudden flare cross his eyes.

Before Mia could think of any potential repercussions, she reached for the small white cube that sat on Jordi's hand, but Jordi snapped his fingers closed and took his hand out of reach.

"Ah ah ah," he chided. "Adults only."

Jordi rolled the cube in his hand and held it between thumb and forefinger.

"I got this as payment for a job," he explained. "Or rather, as compensation for a job I didn't get paid for, due to employer existence failure, which, before you ask, wasn't my fault. He picked a very inopportune moment to suffer a household accident with a kitchen knife. He never got around to close the deal, so I'm sitting on them. Well, I _did._ Two went to a very promising company in India. I'm serious, keep an eye on those guys. I already bought a few shares."

"It's a drive?" Aiden asked, skeptically.

"A _nano_-drive," Jordi corrected grinning. "Prototype. Touch and wifi connectable, stores a petabyte of data, and I'm hearing it's lightning fast."

Pearce ignored the dig, picked the cube out of Jordi's fingers and studied it for a moment, then turned his gaze back to the fixer.

"That's worth a fortune," he said.

"Yes, and I already made it by selling two of them. Besides, I don't want to give you a tie, like last year. I hate to repeat myself and you still dress like a fashion victim anyway. You'll appreciate this more."

"Never said I didn't use it, I just don't wear it," Pearce remarked chuckling. He turned over and placed the cube at the side of the laptop, tabbed a handful of keys to bring up the console window. After another moment, he displayed the specs of the cube on the screen.

"Fuck," Mia muttered. "Size matters after all."

"Pretty good, yeah," Pearce agreed, more soberly, straightened and faced Jordi again.

"Are you sure you have no ulterior motive, some hidden agenda or strings attached?" he asked, growing serious from one moment to the next. "I don't deal in favours."

Jordi held both hands out in front of him and plastered an offended expression on his face.

"No, it's a _gift_, Pearce. But if you don't want it…"

"I want it," Pearce cut in instantly, almost too eager. "As long as you remember that you don't get to play me."

Jordi huffed, but his friendly mien was rapidly coming off, abraded by Pearce's unrelenting antagonism.

"Yeah yeah, or you'll shoot me in the head yadda yadda blah, Pearce," he said, too lightly for what he was saying. "You realise that you'll eventually talk yourself into doing it, don't you? And then there'll be two of us who see it coming. Maybe it'll be a birthday bullet next year."

"Make it a golden one," Pearce said plaintively.

Jordi laughed, surprisingly heartfelt. He shook his head. "You got work for me, you call," he said.

Pearce nodded, "Yeah, I do have something coming up, but still needs some setup."

"Oh goodie," Jordi announced, rubbed his hands together. He tipped a finger to the side of his head, then turned and strode back to his car.

"So…" Mia started. "I sense an interesting story here. More than one, actually."

Pearce settled both hands on her upper arms and shifted her bodily out of the way so he could sit down in front of the laptop, still studying the cube's specs.

"Adults only," he said dismissively. "Both times."

"Well, good thing I am one, then," Mia said, but she already knew Pearce wasn't going to explain anything. She saw it in the way he looked at her from the side, not even bothering to turn his head.

He relaxed slightly, changed the tone of his voice and asked, "You gonna try again? Or do we just agree I won this round?"

Mia glanced over the obstacle course, revised the route she'd seen him take before and wondered if she could at least beat his score today.

"Not a chance in hell," she said.

* * *

Mia Perez was a college dropout. Not enough stamina, her stepmother assessed, not enough bite, no ambition. She never stuck with anything for long. Dabbled in computer science, acting, martial arts and baby-, dog- and housesitting when the money ran out. Hustling and drug dealing, too, for when she needed some excitement and a bigger buck quickly.

After the college debacle, her family pretty much disavowed her and she'd been on her own ever since. Crashing with friends when she'd lost yet another job and was unable to pay the rent. She worked as a car mechanic, dealing drugs, selling fenced goods on ebay. Through some magic — and a little more skill than most people thought she possessed — the cops had no idea she even existed. She hadn't known how long it would last, or where it would go.

Her first semi-regular job was a part-time gig as security tester for a computer company called Uplink, a social media off-shot for IT freelancers and their clients with a nice slice of Darknet for the less legal, but more profitable kinds of business transactions.

Mia never knew what _specific _trait of hers had prompted Pearce to approach her, perhaps a combination of all of them. And after working with him, she wasn't sure it said many good things about her character, either. It didn't matter to her, though.

Pearce had been a nebulous figure to her, like for most of the rest of Chicago. His portrayal in the media was all over the place, they never settled on just one version of the story. One moment he was a lone wolf, the next he was a spider at the centre of an extensive web of agents, next moment something in between. She'd heard he was fighting the Club, a week later he was said to have allied with the Club against the Militia. He was a member of DedSec, he was their enemy. Speculation about what he even _wanted _in all of this was still running high, years after his first appearance.

She suspected he was after Uplink and just found her by accident, thought he could use her in some capacity, but he had yet to ask her to do anything questionable in terms of Uplink. Perhaps he was biding his time, or she was just a contingency. Both were entirely possible.

Running with him as… whatever she was. Maybe Jordi hadn't been all wrong. Sidekick, student… minion and canon fodder? She was fairly sure he wouldn't burn her in some senseless battle, but he _would _burn her if he stood to gain enough. It was a sobering thought at the end of the day.

When she came home into her tiny, untidy apartment, a woman sat waiting for her on the kitchen table. She looked perfectly out of place, with a mountain of dirty dishes piled up on the counter behind her. The apartment smelled faintly of old cheese after the heat had backed the stale air for an entire day undisturbed.

"I was gonna call," Mia defended herself before the woman could even open her mouth.

Her name was Cox, though Mia hadn't found any indication it was her real name. In fact, all of Mia's attempts to find out more about her had come up empty. Profiler came up with an error message and other image recognition software had failed to find her likeness anywhere online, which in itself was a feat.

"It better have been to report actual progress," Cox said with stilted professionalism.

"Yeah, not really," Mia said. She dropped her bag and stood in the middle of her own apartment, unsure of what to do next.

Cox watched her, calm disapproval and the obvious, unspoken implication of what would happen if Mia failed to hold up her end of the bargain.

It went on so long, Mia finally burst, "What do you want me to do?! Pearce is the most paranoid guy I've ever seen! I mean, for someone who's still able to _function _and doesn't wear tinfoil! I can't tell you where he is!"

Cox just kept looking at her. "But you see him regularly."

"Yes, so?" Mia frowned. "Doesn't help, does it? That's what _you _kept telling me. You wanted him unprepared and, well, you probably guessed it already, he doesn't actually do that."

"We are, indeed, aware of the problem of approaching Aiden Pearce undetected," Cox nodded. "He is, however, only human. He cannot be on guard 24/7. He gets tired. He gets hungry. He gets wounded, too, I'm sure. He'll catch a cold, or the flu, or perhaps he's just hungover one morning. Now, how comes that you are in his inner circle for an entire year and not _one _of these, or similar circumstances, has presented itself?"

Mia bit down on her lower lip, feeling her mind choke on too many thoughts at once. She'd put herself in this place, at the mercy of Cox's crystalline lack of compassion and the mysterious collective she represented. If Mia didn't know any better, she'd believe Cox could read her mind, because it was the best explanation for how Cox always knew exactly where it'd hurt.

"Not… like you could use them," Mia said finally. She sensed the displeasure and had some idea of what was coming next, so Mia said, "But, listen, yeah? It wouldn't have helped. It's… like, a wounded animal? He closes up. Doesn't trust anyone then. He doesn't go to friends for help when he's… hurt or something. He pays a fixer, finds some mob doctor or some crooked vet to patch him. Someone who doesn't know him and doesn't have a chance to spill on him. I only hear about it later. I don't know what he does when we aren't together."

Much to Mia's surprise, Cox seemed to find the argument convincing, nodding slowly to herself.

"Perhaps you have to give him some extra incentive to trust you," Cox said after she'd thought it through.

"How the hell do I do that?"

Cox smirked a little. "You are, as I'm sure you're aware, a not unattractive young woman and he is, as I've just pointed out, only human. We imagine…"

"You want me to, what? Seduce him?" Mia interrupted, disbelieving. "Like a… a honeytrap?"

Mia laughed, she didn't feel particularly entertained, but the thought was just too ridiculous. Cox wasn't all wrong, no doubt Pearce had a ton of weaknesses — human or otherwise — but he was careful, too. Mia knew his keeping secrets from her wasn't even a sign of distrust. It was mere caution and he was doing it to protect _her, _not just just himself.

"We imagine he must be rather lonely," Cox finished her sentence as if Mia had never interrupted her. "We think it's one of the reasons he has taken you on in the first place."

Mia frowned. Tonelessly, she said, "Do you realise how creepy that 'we' gets after a while?"

Cox smiled a little, as if Mia had just given her a compliment.

She said, "We are certainly aware we haven't given you an easy task. We are only trying to help."

"Never thought I'd get to whore myself out! Thanks for making it happen for me," Mia remarked cheerfully, only to snap back into seriousness. "It won't work. It'll just make everything worse. Pearce thinks I'm a child, he'll either laugh at me or be grossed out and _then _laugh."

Cox seemed unimpressed. "It's a step up from killing you."

Mia couldn't think of a witty remark to that. For one, it was doubtlessly true. For another, it wasn't especially unlikely if Pearce ever found out.

Cox thought for a moment, then said, "Though, perhaps we were wrong. Not about him being lonely, but about what he seeks. If he thinks of you as a daughter, that might be even better. It is, after all, well-known that family matters to him. You should play it up."

"That's cruel," Mia pointed out, but didn't expect her argument to sway Cox in any way.

The woman arched an eyebrow, "So is murder," she said pointedly as she got to her feet, straightened her pant suit. ""We don't exactly care what you do, but we expect you to actually call us next time."

She looked around the apartment, slightly crinkled her nose at the sight and smell. "And you better had some results soon, too."

Cox smiled unpleasantly. "If you don't, we'll let you decide if you want us to kill, or if you'd prefer Pearce to do it."

For the moment satisfied, Cox said nothing more, stepped around the trash delicately and let herself out in the same way she must have let herself in.

Once Cox was gone, Mia pivoted on one foot and let herself drop on her couch like a shapeless sack. She slung an arm over her eyes and tried very hard not to think of anything much at all.

* * *

_End of _Sucker's Game – Part 1_


	44. Sucker's Game - Part 2

**Warning: **Violence, bad description of hacking

**Totally Relevant Author's Note:** Piiiiiiiiiizzzzzzaaaaaaa! Basically, I'm a single-minded zombie when it comes to pizza. I had to stop writing and _make one. _

* * *

**_Sucker's Game – Part 2**

* * *

Most of Uplink's clientele were tech-savvy enough for their safety features to require some sort of finesse, but during her work, Mia still came across the odd engineer who _still _thought the name of his pet spelled backward was a clever idea. It was work, but not much of a challenge. It was patching here, changing passwords there, plugging that breach and reminding people of less known exploits.

Late in the afternoon, Mia sat in the cool basement of one of Pearce's hideout and hacked _him. _And Pearce's system was a different beast entirely.

It wasn't just because he was paranoid, because he had too many enemies and because ctOS was just one massive breach in itself, designed to observe and record everyone's minute, private detail. Big Brother had _nothing _on this. Pearce's system was also a patchwork of heavily modified software, running on a customised version of Blume's desktop OS. Whatever exploits the original system had, Pearce seemed to have combed through the entire source code and changed it to his liking. The system didn't behave the way it was supposed to and repelled everything she threw at it.

The rules of the challenge were fairly simple. Get in, find a file, download it, scrub all traces from the system, decrypt the file and play it as proof. Pearce wasn't allowed to physically disconnect, no plucking the cables at the last moment, but other than that, everything was fair game.

She heard Pearce typing from an adjoining room, but only occasionally. She had the impression he wasn't actively fighting her, he was just observing what she was doing. It annoyed her a little, it wasn't the game, he was supposed to try to stop her to make it a challenge, but for now it was hard enough and she wasn't going to complain if it netted her a win.

She suppressed a happy squeal when she finally found a snag to pry her way inside, she didn't want to tip him off.

Wandering around in Pearce's system felt like a relaxing swim in a pool full of piranhas, but once she had her breach, it was just a question of escalating her privileges and go look for the file. It was the first time she had tripped up all day when she accessed the indices without the correct set of administrative rights. The system completely threw her out by shutting itself down.

Mia sat back in her chair, wondering what to do now.

Pearce booted up again and Mia arched her brows, settled her fingers back to the keyboard. Her privileges were gone, but he hadn't closed the original breach she'd made.

She sighed, and started again.

When the file finally started downloading to her laptop she allowed herself a moment of triumph before she dove right back in, hacking her way to the log files. Altering them required a complete new set of privileges. Pearce had to have some kind of superuser account, otherwise getting around his own stuff would just be a pain. She hadn't figured out how to crack that, though. Not yet. She'd probably get another go at it at some point. For now she worked with what she had, piecemeal and altering the logs one careful keystroke at a time.

"Gotcha!" she announced finally and swivelled her chair in a circle when she heard Pearce get up. After another moment, she heard the hiss of the coffeemaker.

She had the downloaded file quarantined and carefully scanned it. She glanced up briefly to see Pearce appear in the doorway with a cup in hand, watching her over the rim.

"What are you cheering at?" he asked, took a sip.

She took her hands down, eyed the scan results.

"I have it!" she declared. "And I got to your logs, too."

"Yeah," he agreed.

It was a simple zipped-up music file, padded for size, but with no malicious data anywhere in sight, but Pearce's calm made her frown and hesitate.

"It's not encrypted?" she asked. "You said 'decrypt'…"

"You'll have to play it," Pearce reminded her.

She chewed on her lower lip, hand resting on the mouse without doing anything. It smelled like a trap.

"It's a loss if you don't play it," Pearce said. "Aren't you curious?"

"Is it going to blow up in my face?" she asked.

Pearce chuckled. "Probably not."

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and opened the file. It extracted without any incident and the extraction log gave no indication anything unusual had happened. She looked it over again, but it remained just a music file with harmless meta data.

Her frown growing deeper, she looked up and studied him, nonchalantly leaned in the doorway with his coffee, completely sure of himself. Well, more than one way to hack a target, she thought, running the scenario through her head. Let's assume she _had _succeeded in getting the file and it wasn't rigged. The only way for him to stop her now would be to make her give up a winning game.

She bared her teeth in defiance. He was just messing with her, wasn't he?

"Fuck this," she muttered and open the file.

She barely heard the first second of some song and then the sound cut out. She opened her eyes just in time to see as her screen go black as her computer shut down.

"Oops," Pearce said, sounding insufferably smug.

Mia kicked her chair and it swung around.

"What did you do?" she demanded. She got up, turned back to her computer and tried to boot it, but it wasn't responding. "There was nothing! Fuck! I checked. The file was clean!"

"The file was clean," Pearce agreed. "But your system wasn't."

Mia blinked, glanced over her computer as if merely looking would reveal everything.

"Playing the file was just the trigger," Pearce explained.

"You bugged my system! When did you do that?"

"Wouldn't you like to know."

Mia thought about it, went through her steps to figure out where the mistake had been.

"Shit," she said. He _had _been messing with her, but he'd let her do most of the work himself, hadn't he. She'd just assumed he wasn't fighting back, but he'd never even pretended he wasn't.

Pearce grinned, shrugged and took another sip.

"You lost, your turn to fetch us pizza," he said. "Extra bacon, extra cheese, black olives. Get going, I'm hungry."

She huffed, but got up and picked up her bag. Pearce kept his position in the doorway, sipping coffee, his gaze tracked her all the way up the stairs.

* * *

"Five more minutes!" the guy behind the counter called and managed to dredge up some semblance of apology while he barely looked in her direction.

Mia leaned on a greasy bar table, flipping through the contents of her phone without actually looking at it. She wanted to get back to her computer and figure out what Pearce had done to it. The longer she thought about it, the more convinced she was he must have had a backdoor for a while. Maybe it had been stupid to think he wouldn't. He trusted her too much, he must have been all over her things at some point.

That was a funny thought, though. He trusted her. The most paranoid person she'd ever met, who she only ever witnessed covering all the angles, always digging deeper than necessary, always thinking things through, planning ahead one more step. He _trusted_ her and he really shouldn't…

Her phone buzzed and tore her from the depressing line of thinking. _Paerce_, probably wanting to know where his unhealthy food was.

She picked up the call.

"Hey, sorry, they messed…"

_"Mia, shit … don't… come back here!" _

She froze, her breathing got stuck somewhere in her chest, every muscle going tense and her vision seemed to blur briefly from the rush of adrenaline. She could've sworn her heart stopped beating for an entire second and came back at twice the speed.

_"Fuck…" _Pearce cursed.

Mia had to listen dumbstruck to the sound of shots, then a brief moment of silence, followed by metallic clattering. The sounds were distant, Pearce must have dropped the phone, or tossed it away. She heard more shots, the sound of breaking furniture and computers falling to the ground. She couldn't put the pieces together and form an idea of what was going on.

She was moving before she realised it, ignored the employee calling after her. She hurried back to the car, messily — and illegally — parked on the sidewalk because she hadn't found a better spot earlier.

Something scraped over the floor and she heard breathing, the slam of a metal door.

_"Mia?" _

Pearce sounded winded, more so than she'd ever heard him, he seemed to be moving.

"I'm here, what's going on? What do I do?"

He didn't answer immediately and heard something else shatter, metallic, but she couldn't identify it. Pearce grunted and cursed, hissed in pain.

"Are you hurt?"

_"Been… worse," _he answered with a groan that made it hard to believe him. _"I'm bleeding. Listen… I… need you to pick me up." _

She was already behind the wheel, started the engine and began backing out, the phone tucked between shoulder and head. A pedestrian jumped out of her way at the last moment, hurling a few shocked expletives her way.

_"The teardown, down the… down the street," _he seemed to still be moving, but his voice was losing strength quickly. _"I'll… fuck this… on my phone, says 'Doc'… you take me… take…" _

He didn't finish and the silence stretched. She still heard some background noise, heard his laboured breathing.

"Pearce," Mia said. "You still there?"

She had to hit the brakes hard at a traffic light, needed a moment to orient herself.

_"Gonna make it," _Pearce whispered, raw determination bleeding through, as if he needed to convince himself rather than her. _"Just get… just… help." _

The line didn't go dead. She heard the sound of a struggle, another groan and the phone dropped again. Something snapped and the connection was gone, it hit her like a physical blow and send her mind reeling, trying to make sense of what was happening. It shouldn't be hard, it didn't matter _who _had raided the hideout, it probably didn't matter. One of his countless enemies getting the jump on him, and he was… what? Already dead? Bleeding out in the street?

Shit shit shit… It was the exact scenario Cox wanted from her, wasn't it. This was _it_. Pearce out of commission, already cut down or at least unable to fight back, unable to spring his traps and play his tricks.

Mia shivered behind the wheel, wound too tense to keep still. For the moment, she was unable to do anything but drive with the flow of traffic around her, stuck as the thoughts chased themselves through her head. She had to do something. She _should. _She should go to the house Pearce had said and hope he'd made it that far. She'd get him to a doctor and he'll be patched up and…. then what? Cox would probably know, because this type of shootout would hit the news eventually and Cox had never given the impression of being stupid, she'd put two and two together. She'd know Mia had wasted the perfect opportunity.

And then? What if Cox decided Mia had served her use? What if she leaked to _Pearce _about Mia? Would he let her go if she saved him now? If she was honest? In all the time she'd known him, had Pearce _ever _seemed the forgiving type?

Something, there had to be _something. _

But maybe… maybe if she tipped off Cox and Cox sent someone and they'd clash with whoever had assaulted Pearce? He could slip away in the chaos. He had resources, he probably didn't need to rely on Mia, she was just the easiest, perhaps on top of his mind when it'd happened. Perhaps… that'd work? Both Pearce and Cox would think she'd done her part and she'd get out of it.

And perhaps she could get herself to believe it eventually.

Her fingers were still shaking, it was difficult fishing her phone from the passenger seat where she'd dropped it. She'd never called Cox from this phone, it would just be sloppy, but she couldn't drive home first. It might get Pearce killed. It might get _her _killed, too. Mia had no idea what Cox would do to her once this was over, but she doubted it would be pretty.

She took two attempts to dial, almost took it as a sign to stop, but forced herself through anyway.

"It's Mia," she said.

_"You have something?" _Through the phone, Cox sounded even more distant and passionless.

"Maybe," Mia said slowly. Even her voice was unsteady. "I can give you the address of Pearce's hideout. He's wounded, but he won't stay there for long. You've got to move fast."

_"We will take a look," _Cox said, profoundly unimpressed.

"I'll text it," Mia said and dropped the call immediately. She couldn't handle even one more breath out of Cox, some remark or joke wrapped around that ridiculous plural of her's.

When the text was sent, Mia drove back on the sidewalk, on the edge Millennium park somewhere, glittering dark spread out by her side and the air smelled a little fresher.

She didn't know what to do, she couldn't go there, didn't want to go home and had nowhere else to turn to. Not with this.

She sucked in a deep breath and knocked her head down on the wheel. The slight pain a dull echo in her numb mind. After a moment, she did it again, but it wasn't as satisfying as she had hoped it'd be.

She cast a glance at the clock. Over twenty minutes since her call to Cox, a bit more since Pearce's call.

Steeling herself, trying to calm herself, she took the car back to the road and drove back to hideout. She took a different route, careful to not just stumble into whatever mess awaited her.

In the end, there was nothing. It was quiet when she drove past the hideout. Every parked car seemed suspicious to her, but she couldn't really tell. Everything was shockingly quiet, contradicting the images in her head, the action film spooling down behind her eyes. She resisted the urge to slow down and give herself away. She circled back around to come at the teardown from the other direction and parked in the shadows.

She fished her gun from the glovebox, checked it, but it was just stalling.

The teardown had been a five story apartment house, once, severely unsafe and crumbling, it sat like a hulking monster set back from the street and it's lights, veiled in unusual silence.

She made her way carefully inside, gave her eyes time to adjust to the darkness, enough to see the dropped pieces of wall and floors piled up everywhere. It felt abandoned, empty. Not even the hobos would use the place.

"Pearce?" she called, though she didn't dare raise her voice.

She walked further, close to the building's outer wall and stopped in an intact doorway, peering into the inky darkness beyond. "Pearce?" she called again, wondering if he was even able to answer.

The sudden buzz of her phone nearly made her shriek. She scrambled to pull it from her back-pocket, suddenly scared the noise would attract attention. Pearce was calling her and she hurried to pick up.

"Oh god, where are…?"

_"You're done here," _Pearce said, voice controlled and abrasive. The relief flooding through her turned to ice-water instantly, it crawled up her spine and made her breath stutter. _"Go home." _

He hung up before she had a chance to say anything to defend herself. He knows, she thought. He _knows_ and it's been a trap, a setup just to test her and she'd failed it spectacularly. Fuck, he must have known for much longer than that.

"I can explain," she said to herself, rehearsing as she tapped the screen of her phone with stiff fingers. Pearce's number scrolled over the screen as it dialled. "I'm sorry. Shit, I'm sorry."

A female voice came on, artificially impersonal. _The number you're trying to reach has not been assigned._

* * *

A blackout preceded the attack, the electricity snapped the whole block into darkness. A rundown Wards neighbourhood, bordering on Brandon Docks, vacancies back to back with warehouses and factory sites, populated by people who went home at night or had long since learned not to care. The blackout made some of them walk outside their front doors and gaze in bewilderment up at the smog dome sitting above the city, but if they saw the two black vans that parked on either end of one of the houses, they wisely chose to look the other way.

When the blackout hit, half a dozen armed men got out of the vans and surrounded the house. They wasted no time and stormed the place with practiced efficiency, suppressed guns and bulletproof vests, night-vision goggles over their eyes. Only the sparks of their muzzles was visible through the windows, the sound inaudible even through the thin walls, though sometimes there was the normal bark and bite of a gun, shouts and screams and the shattering of glass. It was over within minutes and the silence coiled back, too thick to be disturbed the fall of limp bodies and the sounds of their dying.

Cox had made a run for it the moment she realised what was going down. She'd shot a man and made it to the backdoor, she threw herself through, stumbled on the steps and almost fell. Struggling back to her feet, she cast a glance back over her shoulder, gun ready in case she was being pursued, but there was nothing.

She threw herself fully around, away from the house, but she reeled to a stop sharply, before she even could pick up speed, pinned there by the presence of dark shape poised on the path in front of her.

She brought her gun up.

Pearce took a step forward, just enough so the murky orange glow gave a hint of his face, hidden as it was behind a mask, further obscured by the night vision goggles pulled down around his neck. His hands held relaxed by his side, a phone in one hand, the other empty.

Cox withdrew a little, straightened and snapped her second hand to her gun to steady her aim.

He titled his head to the side, just a little, almost as if listening to someone she couldn't see.

A shot cut through the night, sheared past Pearce and ripped her knee apart, tore her leg back with the force of it. She screamed in pain and shock, but before she even had a chance to fall, a second shot hit her in the other knee and her scream ended in a wet, oddly surprised hiccup.

She dropped as both her legs crumpled under her weight, but she gathered herself surprisingly fast, tried to bring her gun back up, but Pearce was far too close already. In a series of smooth movements, he slapped the gun from her shaky grip and slammed a pair of handcuffs on her wrists. He picked her up by the chain linking the cuffs as he went past her and dragged her with him.

She howled as her destroyed legs scraped over the old wood of the stairs. She struggled, but couldn't muster the coordination for actual resistance, spasms ran the length of her from shock.

By the time they were halfway along the hallway, her body went limp and silent, broken only by shudders quiet whimpering escaping from her lax mouth.

In the kitchen, Pearce let go of her and her arms dropped to the ground, as limp as the rest of her.

He ignored her for the moment to take a look around the destroyed kitchen.

The other fixers were still busy securing the house and making sure no one had gone into hiding somewhere.

"We're all clear," one of the fixers reported and Pearce only nodded.

"We'll clean up the bodies," the fixer continued, he glanced down at Cox. "Should we take her, too?"

"No," Pearce said. "I got plans for her."

It was too dark to see the fixer's expression, but there was a minuscule pause before he shrugged and turned away. He called a few quiet orders to his men, who began to gather the corpses and quickly search them before they carried them off to the vans.

"This is like breadcrumbs!" Jordi announced as he stepped into the kitchen. His shape was made distinctive by the spike over his shoulder, the sniper rifle he carried. "Except it's a river of blood, my favourite kind of safety hazard."

"You didn't have to shoot her," Pearce greeted him.

"She looked like she was about to blow your head off," Jordi said and shrugged. He took an elegant step to the side, giving the fixer some room to drop a handful of phones and a tablet on the table.

"All they had on them," he said.

"Good," Pearce said. He glanced around to assess the situation and told him, "You should get clear, I have to turn the power back on, we're starting to attract attention."

The fixer nodded and he and the others left quickly. No doubt some of them had pocketed a few of the weapons or other valuables, but they wouldn't be stupid enough to withhold any smart devises. After some very bloody incidents, Chicago's fixers had learned to accept him as deadlier and more dangerous than them. Everyone who still tried him was either a complete amateur, a complete madman or not from Chicago. The fixers were quite happy to work for him and take his money these days. Those who held up their end of the deal got paid very well. It wasn't _safe _by any stretch, but it was a step up from everyone and their dog gunning for him. Now he only had the bigger players to worry about.

It also somewhat limited his body-count, though he was no longer certain it made much of a difference.

"That's the contract," Jordi insisted. "I got your back. Because if it's _not_, we need to talk about that. If you just want someone to watch you through a scope, I'm afraid you need to find someone else."

Pearce pulled off the night vision goggles and dragged the mask down, then reached for his phone. The white glare caught in his face, light and shadows crawling in every crevice of his skin and settling behind his eyes. He tapped his phone and a moment later the lights flickered back on to reveal the true extent of the carnage.

"You got a first aid kit?" Pearce asked. He went through the kitchen cabinets quickly. "If she bleeds to death she'll be useless."

"Though I once stalked this rich guy's daughter for a week," Jordi continued. "It was all prep work, of course, because he wanted to fake her abduction and use the insurance money to save his company. He thought the stalking would make it more credible…"

Pearce shot him a look and Jordi changed the end of his narrative into a long-suffering sigh.

"I got one in my car," Pearce said. "Can you fetch it?"

Jordi narrowed his eyes, but for reasons of his own, decided not to argue. He stepped around the puddle of blood of blood.

"You're paying for that," he said back over his shoulder.

Pearce nodded and waved him off, barely paying him any attention.

He reached down and hauled Cox up and stuffer her in a chair. The pain of the movement brought her back out of her daze and wailed, took panicked breaths and flailed her bound arms, clearly disoriented from pain and blood-loss.

Pearce slapped her arms down and closed a hand around her throat, leaned in over her until she stopped, forced to focus on him and the constriction of her throat stopped her hyperventilating.

"I'll patch you up," Pearce said when she seemed in a condition to understand him. "But you've got to work with me."

He released his grip slowly, to make sure she had time to understand the power had shifted and she was no longer in control.

Cox blinked slowly. Her face had gone pale, covered in a sheen of cold sweat. She shifted a little in her seat and then whimpered when the movement brought the state of her legs back into brutal awareness.

Pearce ignored her for now. She needed bandages and a small dose of painkillers, enough to dampen some of the pain, but no so much she wasn't lucid anymore. Besides, a little pain would help loosen her tongue.

For now, Pearce took his phone, scrolled through the apps, tapped on the screen. As one, the phones and the tablet on the table lit up their screens, eagerly transferring their data to him after he prodded the weak spots in their security.

"What about the others?" Cox asked in a thin voice, but surprisingly coherent.

Pearce barely glanced up. "Oh, they're dead."

Her eyes went wide, but she seemed too gorged on shock to react otherwise.

"Marianne," Pearce said, still looking at his phone. "Cochran, goes by the name of Cox."

She blinked at her name, bloodshot eyes, struggling to focus on him.

"Out of Indianapolis," Pearce continued. "You run a neat band of bounty hunters. That's a very impressive record you've got there."

He looked up.

"Well, _ran," _he appended cruelly.

* * *

_End of _Sucker's Game – Part 2_


	45. Sucker's Game - Part 3

**Author's Note: **I'm getting the impression Aiden is a member of the 'hitting women is a special sort of crime' school. The game certainly hints at it. I'm flushing that part of his characterisation down the loo, because that's where it belongs, I don't care if it contradicts canon.

**Please** note! I seem to have been incapable of telling the difference between 'headhunter' and 'bounty hunter' and it took _Cyclopz _to point it out to me. I made the same mistake in Surplus Killing (I got it right in Confirmation bias... so I have no idea what's up with that.) It's fixed now and it's a mistake I won't repeat.

* * *

**_Sucker's Game – Part 3**

* * *

Mia was still alive. She was still alive when she left the ruin and got into her car with a haunted look on her face. She was still alive when she parked her car outside her apartment building and she was even alive by the time she finally got home and snapped the door closed behind her.

It didn't quite compute that way. She'd had herself convinced Pearce would kill her if he ever found out. The film of it had played in her head every time Cox oh so gently reminded her of why Mia wasn't going to backstab Cox. Pearce wouldn't forgive this kind of betrayal and moreover, he probably couldn't afford to.

Mia turned on the television in an attempt to drown out the thoughts screaming in her head. She couldn't make sense of them anyway, she didn't know what to do now. She could go on with her life, her boring job, her drained bank account and her wonky circle of friends, online and in the real world.

All that and she was glad he wasn't dead, even if it would solve most of her problems. She had never wanted him hurt. She liked him, his quick mind and parched sense of humour. Working for and with him was a roller-coaster ride and it had been too easy to get used to it, but she'd got it all backward. They'd started on the wrong foot and she'd never figured out how to reverse it.

The TV droned on, some reality show and commercial breaks that felt like they lasted half an hour, trying to sell her chocolate and cars and insurance.

After a while, Mia collected herself from the couch and found the phone she used to call Cox on. It was the second best thing, because Pearce had made it clear he didn't want her to contact him, but the silence from Cox was equally worrisome.

The call went to voicemail and Mia dropped the phone by her side, folded her feet under her and settled back on the couch, failing to get comfortable. No Cox, no Pearce,…

A news broadcast came on, but nothing that held her attention for more than a fleeting second, just colour and white noise, beating through her mind.

It had been the middle of the night when she'd come home, but it took hours until she started crashing. The tiredness slipped up on her as the adrenaline in her system ebbed out. She fell asleep, or at least dozed for a while and came to with a dry mouth and a throbbing headache, momentarily disoriented and even her body felt alien.

There had been a knock on her door, her mind informed her belatedly and just in time for the knock to come again.

Mia was awake instantly, she jumped to her feet, but nearly dropped back down in a sudden, nauseating bout of vertigo. Another knock and it was eerie how the rhythm hadn't changed.

As quietly as she could, Mia slipped to the door, leaned in to peer through the peephole.

Pearce.

Looking both calm and furious at the same time.

Mia wrapped her hands around the handle of the baseball bat leaned against the wall by the door and stepped back. Swung the bat once experimentally, then reached out with one hand to unlock the door very slowly in the hope the clicking didn't give her away.

She took several careful steps back, as far as she could go. If she had a gun and the guts, she could've shot him through the door, but she'd forgotten her gun in her car.

"It's open," she called, both hands on the bat.

Pearce didn't burst through the door, the way she had imagined. He simply opened it and stepped inside, barely paused when he saw the bat raised over her shoulder. He pulled the door closed behind him, locking them both in. And just like that, the rest of the world became unreachable for Mia, she'd have to go through him to get there.

Mia flexed her hands on the bat, checked her stance, but Pearce was careful to stay just out of easy range. He stepped to the side, paced in a half-circle in front of her and let the menace built on its own in the fake silence. The TV chatter on meaninglessly in the background.

"What?" he demanded, growl so deep she could feel it in her bones. "What did I miss?"

She shuffled her feet to keep facing him. "It's a long story," she said.

"Listening."

She hesitated, part of her hadn't expected him to give her a chance to defend herself and for a moment she felt ridiculous with her baseball bat. They'd sparred, she wasn't going to bash his head in with the thing, not even he somehow slipped on a piece of her trash and give her an opening.

"You know about the chicagovigilant site, right?"

"It's harmless."

"No… that is, it used to be, I guess," she shook her head.

"They're just groupies."

"It was bought by Uplink, about two years ago. And Uplink also backs the Grid," she said and stopped. Like he didn't know _that_. But he must have missed the rest if he didn't know about the change in focus of chicagovigilant. He was right, it _had _been a fairly shallow platform for fans of the vigilante, a community site only peripherally monitored by Blume and Bloodhound, on the off chance anything useful turned up there.

"They offer money for people who know anything about you. It's a community thing, like if you have good stuff you get awarded a bigger bonus. It's just a game. I mean, that's what everyone thinks."

Pearce paced back, kept his gaze fixed on her, traced it up the length of the bat with mild curiosity.

"You sold information on me," he stated.

"But never anything big! Never anything that could really hurt you!"

It sounded cheap and defensive, something anyone would say in that moment without meaning a word of it.

"Please," she tried. "I'm sorry."

It was entirely the wrong thing to say, she realised it the moment it left her mouth. Or perhaps he'd just waited for the right moment, when guilt made her gaze skitter away. Pearce sprang and her living room was nowhere near large enough to make it difficult. She managed to swing the bat barely an inch, never got enough power behind it, Pearce simply caught it with one hand, punched for her face with the other. Mia brought her elbow up awkwardly in an effort to deflect it. She lost her grip on the bat and Pearce snapped it from her hand and pulled it down. He stepped forward, too close, hooked a leg around hers and toppled her.

Mia tried to twist away, leap back up and out of reach, but found no good footing and Pearce wouldn't let up. He ripped the bat free and knocked it down, caught her chin and then her throat as she fell.

She hit the floor hard, desperately trying to catch a gulp of air while rolling away, up on her knees and she almost had it, but Pearce brought a knee down on the small of her back, caught her flailing hands in a bruising grip.

"Stop struggling," he snarled, leaning over her with his full weight. He didn't have to threaten, Mia did as she was told, she let herself go limp, dropped her forehead on the ground and lay still.

The moment Pearce sensed her capitulation, he let up, giving her a moment to breathe once his weight lifted off her. Then he yanked her back up and tossed her on the couch.

Mia made no attempted to get back up. Her spine stung, her throat felt too tight and the bones in her wrist already ached, glancing down, she saw blood rush back into the pale marks.

"Show me," he said, keeping her pinned with his gaze.

"What?"

"I want you to show me everything you gave them," he said slowly, like speaking to an idiot.

She sat up a little more, trying to ease the persistent pain in her back by nestling into the cushions.

"I've been using a tablet," she explained. She'd been careful with it. She'd never used it anywhere near Pearce and it was always off and stashed away.

She took a breath and looked across the room. "The drawer under the TV."

Pearce glanced at it, gauging the angles before he moved, made sure he kept her in his sight as he went over and pulled the tablet out. It booted in his hands, but he put it away and pulled his phone out instead, used it to access the tablet and browse her data.

His expression was still made of stone, impossible to read his intentions. She'd lost her chance to fight, but if she was honest, it had never been much of a chance to start with.

"I'm sorry," she said again, it came out in a croak and she coughed, trying to dislodge the lump in her throat.

This time, Pearce ignored her, focussed on the data.

Mia knew what it was she'd been selling, but it was harder to anticipate what Pearce would make of it. Which piece of information with his name attached was he _okay _being sold, even if it was just for some easy bucks and didn't endanger him? To a bunch of groupies, as he'd called them? Mia wouldn't be too confident about it, and it wasn't even what had happened. Fixers and bounty hunters from across the country had been invading the website for a while, gleaning what useful information they could and slowly reshaping the community. Unlike Bloodhound, they weren't hampered by any red tape. Bribery and extortion was just fine for these folks.

"Can I do something?" Mia asked. "To make up for it?"

Pearce gave her a long look, said nothing until she looked away, and he returned his attention to the phone.

Mia forced herself to be patient. She didn't feel too good, but decided it was probably better than annoying him more.

She watched the digits on the TV change, watched a commercial for shampoo and concentrated on the slow crawl of time until suddenly Pearce seemed to be done. He took the phone down and put it in his back-pocket.

He stalked towards the door.

"Come," he said.

He stopped by the door, looked back at her and she pushed herself to her feet immediately. She hadn't even taken her shoes off when she'd come home last night, but as she got up her gaze passed over the baseball bat. Pearce noticed it, too, but didn't deign to even comment on it.

He opened the door and she had no choice, walked ahead of him down the hallway, hit by the stifling heat that pushed a thin sheen of sweat on her skin the moment she left the comparative coolness of her failing A/C. She had no keys with her, no money, no phone. She considered asking if she could pick them up, but decided not to. It didn't seem all that important right then.

In the elevator, she kept herself pressed into the farthest corner, but she still stood uncomfortably close to him and the elevator was small and hot.

"I checked your accounts," Pearce said, taking her by surprise when he sounded close to normal.

"Fake identity 101," Mia said. "It's just an online payment account, no one checks them."

"I do."

"Well," Mia said sullenly. "You missed that one."

Any other time and the thought would have made her feel good, adding a strike to their imagined tally of one-upmanship, but it wasn't a victory she could cash in on.

Pearce let her to a white car, parked in the shadow of a building. He let her get into the passenger seat and locked the door with a tap on his phone the moment the door closed. Mia flinched at the sound, but took it lying down. She was slowly coming to terms with this thing he had going, since he seemed to be planning something other than just straight-up murder. She was unsure if she'd _like _it much, but it likely better than immediate death.

They drove in silence for a while, just the traffic flowing with them and around them, the glare of the rising sun in their faces. Pearce held a hand in front of his face when he got blinded, then fished a pair of sunglasses from his side.

Mia just kept holding her hand in front of her face and turned her head to the side, watched Chicago pass her by outside the window.

"Why?" Pearce asked.

Mia laughed, not because it was funny, but because the truth just seemed incredibly absurd now.

"I was scared of you," she answered. "I know that makes no sense."

"It doesn't."

Silence again, though slightly less suffocating than before. After a while, Mia said, "I didn't realise I was selling that stuff to bounty hunters. Not at first. I thought I could make some money and most of these guys are harmless. I wasn't… I never gave anything important away."

"You posted a picture of my rig."

Mia smirked before she realised what she was doing and wiped the expression from her face. She was still looking out the window, she hoped he hadn't seen it.

"Yeah, that was a good one. But I never took a pic of you, thought of it, never did it."

"But you took one of Abbott Island."

"Everyone knows about the Bunker anyway. They think it's your secret lair."

"It used to be," Pearce said and for a moment she almost thought he was smiling.

Mia blinked slowly in the sunlight, rolled her forehead against the glass, then cast a quick glance in his direction.

"People started figuring out I wasn't just some random chick who spotted you somewhere in Chicago. It was obvious I had real access and the fixers figured out they could use me to get to you. Or bounty hunters, or assassins, or… I have no fucking idea what they even were." She paused. "Bad people, anyway."

He was bad people, too, of course, but there seemed little point in belabouring that and hardly contradicted her original argument.

She continued, "By the time I figured out what was going on… I was in too deep. And there was this woman, she showed up one day at my door. I have no idea how she did it. I'm good at erasing my digital footprint, she shouldn't have been able to find me through chicagovigilant. But anyway, so… she knows I'm working with you and she _also _knows I sold all that stuff on you. She threatened to expose me. I mean, to you. She'd have told _you_."

"That's all?"

"She's pretty creepy, actually," Mia said. "It just never registered that I didn't have to do what she wanted. It felt like I had no choice. And you… well…"

This time, she really laughed and took her head away from the window, straightened in her seat. She looked at him again, it was easier now, not only because he was concentrating on the road.

"I just wasn't sure what you'd do if I told you."

His face was serious, but it wasn't quite the same unfeeling mask anymore.

"You knew," Mia said, trying and failing to not let it sound like an accusation.

"I suspected," Pearce corrected quietly. "Something was off."

"You set me up," Mia said and laughed a little to herself, dropped her head into the headrest. "I never had a chance, did I, between Cox and you. But… I didn't sent Cox after you. I send her to the hideout, you said you weren't there anymore. I thought maybe if Cox showed up there, it'd give you a chance to slip away. I didn't want to betray you. I just didn't know how to unfuck all of it."

Pearce made no answer and the conversation petered out again. It sounded so dumb, saying these things aloud. It should maybe make her feel better, a great weight off her chest and all that shit, but it wasn't. Things were beginning to feel like an ending.

They were leaving Chicago behind, too, the city fell away from the sides of the highway.

Mia said, "Where are we going?"

Pearce ignored her, but after another minute, he said, "You stupid kid, you could've told me."

She bristled a little at being called a kid and she didn't know what it meant, either.

"After I'd been ratting on you for months? Since practically the moment we met?" Mia asked. "I may be stupid, but I'm not suicidal."

"I can't trust you now," he added.

"Obviously."

She felt his gaze pass over her, almost tangle and it caused a ripple of tension. The silence crawled back, filled the car to bursting.

Mia eyed the radio, but even though all she had to do was reach out, she didn't. It'd chase away the silence, fill her thoughts with something more sensible, even if it was just some cheesy pop song.

She watched the landscape rush by outside the window, wondered what endgame he had in mind. She didn't repeat the question, though, if he'd meant to answer, he would've done it the first time. After about a two hour drive, he suddenly switched to the right lane, cutting too close and going too fast, taking the car off the highway and into a rest area.

A handful of cars were parked there, people wandering to and from the toilets, stretching out beside their cars. Pearce's driving pulled a little attention with them, Mia saw it as they went past, but she didn't think it'd any of them would over to bitch. Someone might remember them, though, if something happened later.

Pearce parked the car beside a black sports car and killed the engine. Once even the humming of it was gone, Mia snapped her head around, too tired to keep playing that game.

"What do you want me to say?" she asked, then shrugged. "Or _do. _Or anything."

"The woman you know as Cox, she's a bounty hunter," Pearce explained, rather unexpectedly. "She had a band of six people working for her. She liked to play it clever, take on marks when they don't expect it, she raked in quite an income that way."

Mia remembered she'd been unable to reach Cox the night Pearce had… what? What had he even done? Set her up? Or Cox? Or the both of them, just because it was most convenient doing it this way? Either way, the trap had snapped closed flawlessly.

Mia studied his face.

"What happened to her anyway?"

Pearce's expression changed in slow motion, he had done nothing to hide his _anger _at her, but it was the calm she couldn't figure out. Now he bent her a small cruel smile and he didn't let it linger, either.

He opened the door and got out and having no idea what else to do, Mia followed. She watched him above the roof of the car as he strode along it and waited until she joined him, stepping to his side with the caution of someone walking on thin ice.

He cast only a quick glance around, barely enough to make sure no one was observing them, and the surveillance cameras weren't angled to catch the back of their car.

"Marianne Cochran, actually," Pearce said as he opened the trunk.

"Shit…" Mia whistled through her teeth, inappropriately.

For Mia, Cox had been an intimidating woman, imposing, charismatic and clearly ruthless, someone who knew how to keep secrets. She'd looked the way Mia imagined some secret government agent or corporate assassin to look. Bound at hands and feet, gagged and pale, she was someone's roadkill. Both her knees were thickly bandaged, but the blood had seeped through, crusted in ugly brown, leaving a puddle of it on the plastic sheet she was lying on. She reeked of death, covered in a sheen of sweat, face sickly pale and lax.

Mia was certain she was dead, but when Pearce placed two fingers to the side of her neck, a tremor ran the length of her body, though she didn't come to.

"Still alive," Pearce stated with mild surprise, he'd be commenting on the weather in much the same tone.

Mia felt watched, the weight of the people not far away pressing on her, the camera eyes constantly sweeping over them, making the back of her head burn. Pearce wouldn't stand there so calmly if there was any actual danger, but reality never had much bearing on paranoia.

"Jordi tried to kill me once," Pearce said and Mia's attention snapped back to him. He put his hand on top of the trunk, but was in no hurry to close it.

Mia blinked between him and Cox and back, thought of Jordi and his stories and his swagger and the casual death in his laughing eyes.

"How are you both still alive?" she asked and her curiosity was almost entirely real. She had no resources left to contemplate Cox. The woman had made her bed, one way or the other. She'd chosen violence and violence had finally caught up with her. Mia didn't know if she herself counted as much the same, she saw herself as an outsider, despite everything, but perhaps it was just a lie she told herself. She had no idea what that truth meant to Pearce, or what lies _he_ had to tell himself to keep going.

Pearce said, "I can always trust Jordi to be Jordi."

He dropped the trunk lid.

Mia took a deep breath. "What's all of this?" she asked. "What's it supposed to mean? What are you gonna do to me?"

Pearce didn't answer immediately, but his expression was allowed to soften, just a little as he studied her.

"It's my mistake," he said. "I let you get too close."

Mia sighed, she hadn't realised just how exhausted she was before she did, letting her shoulders hang.

"Can't you just say it?" she asked, resigned to whatever retribution he had intended all along.

"You aren't going to return to Chicago," Pearce said, voice hard again, the softness all gone from his face. "And I suggest you pick a new career. You don't get in touch with me again. You don't come looking for me. You don't even google me. You see me on the news, you switch the channel. These are the terms. Are we clear?"

It'd be ridiculous if there wasn't a threat riding the undercurrent of what he was saying, if he wasn't entirely willing to live up to any gruesome fantasy she might be entertaining. He just needed the right provocation.

He placed the car keys on the trunk and Mia briefly glanced down, her attention glued to the trunk not because of the keys at all.

"And Cox?" she asked.

She sensed rather than saw him shrug, heard the traces of smugness.

"Your problem."

It didn't register what he was doing before Pearce turned and strode away, around the black car they'd parked behind and Mia heard the telltale clicking of its locks.

Mia broke through her trance, hurried after him and got him to stop at least.

"Wait, you can't just leave me here," she said. "I don't have a phone! I don't have any money! Or ID! I have _nothing!" _

She thought about that and added, "Well, nothing _and_ a corpse that isn't quite dead, yet."

The look Pearce gave her was entirely devoid of sympathy, but he considered her for a moment, one hand already resting on the door of the car.

"It's punishment, Mia, you've got to feel it," he said. "You wouldn't like the alternative."

Mia looked back at the trunk, pictured herself stuffed in there alongside Cox, perhaps still alive, too, just long enough to realise the hopelessness of the situation. Cox needed a doctor and soon, but that'd raise so many questions, Mia didn't even know where to start. It'd be the smarter choice to just leave her behind, it wouldn't be long before the Cox problem solved itself and Mia was certain Pearce had erased all traces of linking Cox to him, there was a good chance there was nothing leading back to Mia, too, rescued by mere association.

Mia wasn't sure she could do it. Already she saw Cox every time she closed her eyes, how broken she was. No one deserved to die in the trunk of a car.

While Mia still contemplated her next move, Pearce had got into the car and Mia flinched when he backed up then stopped hard just before the car touched her legs. The brake lights flared up, then faded again, as he waited for her to get out of his way and no doubt his patience was running low.

Mia looked up, caught his gaze in the rear-view mirror but the cutout was just as unfeeling. Bracing herself, Mia opened her mouth. It could have been worse, Mia thought until she remembered Cox and all the problems he'd saddled her with. He'd ruined her life just as surely as if he'd shot her between the eyes.

In the end, Mia stepped aside after all, she didn't dare not to and Pearce's car slid smoothly from the parking spot, turned and accelerated back to the highway. She was sure Pearce hadn't even given her a last glance.

When the black car was finally out of sight, Mia looked around at the people around her on the parking lot, though none of them were paying attention at all.

She'd always been a drifter, but this was something else. She'd never been more alone, never felt so thoroughly lost as she did in that moment.

* * *

_End of _Sucker's Game_


	46. The Fixer - Part 1

[summary: aiden accepts a fixer contract]

[takes place in 2003]

**_The Fixer**

* * *

Barely two years ago, Damien had been a very different man. He'd sat up all night in his tiny, messy office and written reports for the cops about his findings on confiscated hard-drives and other hardware. He'd spent years seeing the downside of humanity, the bad kind, the people with neatly arranged child porn folders and the sickos with their own, homemade snuff movies. He'd worked himself through cleverly deleted tax-evasion schemes and piles of blackmail and extortion material.

He'd worked until he was about to expire out of sheer boredom or disgust. He'd paid his taxes and watched the digits on his bank statement each month with increasing anxiety. It wasn't fair, but that hadn't really bothered him. He'd always known life wasn't fair, but it took him years until he'd figured out how to fix it. The answer had been right in front him all that time, he could just reach out and take everything for himself.

Well, his first attempt of living the American dream had landed him in jail, ruined his marriage and now he lived in an ugly, two-story house in the borderlands between the Wards and the Loop, housemates with a man for whom shooting people was the hallmark of a bad Monday.

He was still up and working all night, but things were different this time.

A slowly moving cloud of cigarette smoke hung ominously under the ceiling of the living room. He'd never smoked with Marcus in the house, but now it was just Aiden and his girl upstairs, and they could handle a little smoke just fine. He still didn't smoke when Juliana allowed Marcus to come around, but most of the house had soaked up so many fumes, he could probably inhale for a week without feeling any withdrawal.

Damien hadn't been stupid enough to think life of a criminal was glamourous. It wasn't fast cars and hot women, bling around your neck, gun in your hand. That wasn't how it worked, but it _was _being your own man, working only for yourself, taking whatever you could get from whoever was dumb enough to let you.

Cars and guns were Aiden's forte, anyway and girls… well, it turned out he was more hung up on Juliana than he liked to let on, much to his secret chagrin and Aiden's not-so-secret amusement.

Phishing sites were the backbone of their income these days, sustaining a healthy trade with stolen IDs and credit card information. Porn, gambling, drugs, anything that made the victims willing to let things slide in the hope of preserving their dignity.

Sometimes, to mix things up, he and Aiden double-teamed the local urban street racing crowd. After all, Aiden had apparently sold his soul for these particular driving skills, so when he said he'd come in third in a race, he would. If he said he'd push another driver to win, he usually did that, too. Made betting on the outcome a breeze, even if it wasn't quite the thrill of an actual gamble.

Damien was working with headphones on. When Greta stayed the night, it tended to be the smart choice. Ostensibly, Greta was a sociology student, but she spent most of her time working for a PI, playing decoy when an attractive one was needed. Damien supposed it was a step up from auctioning off your worn underwear, but college on a shoestring budget was something he had a lot of sympathy for. He didn't quite know where Aiden had picked her up, but she'd been around for a few weeks, long enough that Damien was wondering whether it was something serious and how much of their work he was supposed to hide from her.

Not that he didn't _like _the girl. She had a pretty face and a dirty mind, something he knew how to appreciate even if he didn't get to benefit. However, she was also ridiculously noisy in bed. He was fairly sure most of their neighbours were going the headphones route, too.

After the first night she'd stayed, Damien had been sarcastic over the breakfast table, but it seemed to have gone right past her. Aiden, meanwhile, had been chuckling into his coffee. He probably agreed, but didn't want to piss her off.

It took a while until the low buzzing of a phone managed to work itself into his awareness and some additional time until he detected the thing stuck between the cushions of the couch.

Damien glared at the phone, pulled his headphones down and put the laptop aside.

He stomped up the stairs, cursing as the phone continued to buzz. Kid hated voicemail so people tended to just keep at it until something happened.

In the semi-darkness, he pushed Aiden's door open, flipped the light switch a few times, then left the light on.

"Hey, kid! Phone!" he yelled.

Juliana had taken most of the furniture when they'd split up, while Aiden's mother had cleared out his old apartment and everything while he was in jail. Even months later, Aiden still only owned a dresser, a bed and a lamp on the floor in a corner. He and Greta had still managed to make a mess of the room, pieces of clothes strewn everywhere. The bed was a mess, too. A thatch of red hair and a pale, freckled foot was all that was visible of Greta. Aiden himself was on his stomach, upside down, sprawling on the bed and tangled in the sheets. He was dangerously close to simply dropping over the edge when he lifted his head and cast a bleary-eyed frown toward the door.

"You left your fixer phone _in_ the couch," Damien said. "I told you not to feed the poor thing."

He didn't give Aiden any warning before he tossed the phone at him, but didn't receive the satisfaction of seeing the device bounce off his hard head. Aiden caught it, albeit awkwardly. He glanced at the phone, then rolled off the bed, taking the blanket with him. He came to sit on the floor and picked up the call, but only to say, "Call you back in a minute."

He took a deep breath and leaned his head back, glowering at Damien.

The girl was beginning to stir, too, goosebumps had sprung up on her exposed skin.

"… sorry," Aiden said slowly, as if he'd just remembered it. "What time is it?"

Damien shrugged, pushed his shoulder into the doorway, letting his gaze pass over Aiden and settle on the girl.

"Half past three," he said.

Aiden rubbed his hand down his face and yawned, stretched his arms out over his head.

"Are you still working?" he asked. He picked himself up, tossed the bed-sheet over his shoulder and arms like a toga.

"One of us has to be the breadwinner," Damien said.

Greta curled to her side, still half-asleep and groped around blindly for where the blanket had gone. When she came up empty, she finally woke up fully. She lifted an arm and put it over her eyes shading them from the light as she peered around the room.

"What…?" she mumbled.

Aiden gave a quick glance, but didn't say anything. Instead, he pushed past Damien and out in the hallway, phone back by his ear as he walked.

"What is it?" he demanded in a vaguely menacing tone of voice. Of course, he'd lose most of that intimidation if whoever was on the other end of the line knew he was wearing a blanket, rifling through the fridge and about to drink from the milk carton.

"Don't you have people for that?" Aiden asked and after a moment, "Okay. What do you need?"

Greta sat up and brushed strands of hair from her face, blinked again in the light and twitched when she registered Damien still lingering in the doorway.

She snapped her legs together and pulled her knees in, snatched up the pillow she'd been sleeping on and clutched it to her, giving Damien a glare.

Damien glanced over his shoulder, raised his voice so Aiden could hear him in the kitchen below.

"So she _is _a real redhead," he remarked.

"Yeah, aren't you really glad you didn't make that bet?" Aiden called up, before he continued his conversation. "I'll need forty minutes."

Greta glared harder, "Do you mind?" she asked acidly.

Damien grinned, "More into black myself, but if Aiden's done with you…"

"Aiden's done with her," Aiden said as he pushed back past Damien and went to his dresser. So maybe he wasn't too serious about her, after all. Must be her constant shrieking.

"Hey, you can't just pass me around like that," Greta growled, looking away from Damien to focus on Aiden.

He'd picked his clothes, piled them in one hand and took a long step to the bed. He leaned down and picked up her chin with the tips of his fingers, smirked a little and kissed her slowly until she forgot she was angry with him.

"Relax," Aiden smirked. "He just got dumped. All he's up to is some cuddling."

Damien gave her his best leer, "Yeah, _hardcore_ cuddling."

Aiden pulled back, but Greta snapped her hand up and fisted it into the blanket, dragging it loose from around him. Aiden rolled his eyes, but let her have it, standing back from the bed to get dressed.

With the blanket around her shoulders and still behind the shield of the pillow, Greta relaxed, leaned back into the wall above the bed, meeting Damien's gaze somewhat more playfully than before.

Damien shrugged and withdrew out into the hallway, making his way back to his laptop, but Aiden caught up with him on the stairs, already fully dressed and looking somewhat presentable, combing his fingers through his tangled hair.

"I need to do a pickup for an old client," Aiden said. "Her normal guy's gone missing, something more's going on."

"I hope there's a bonus in it, then," Damien pointed out.

"Your worry just warms my heart," Aiden remarked.

They stopped by the front door and Aiden pulled his gun holster and jacket from the untidy pile constituting the wardrobe. He flipped the bright red gun in his hand before he put it away, gave a little pleased smirk.

"Oh? I need to worry about you now?" Damien inquired lightly. "Lost all your edge in the last… uh, seven hours? I knew that girl was bad for you."

"Yes, Daddy," Aiden quirked an eyebrow, but grew serious. "But can you stay up? I may need some backup."

"Still need to finish that site anyway," Damien said. "Entertain your redheaded girl. You'll hear it if we get along."

More seriously, he added, "Gonna be there, just call."

"Thanks," Aiden said and left.

After a moment, the roar of his bike broke through the comparative quiet of the late-night-early-morning.

Damien glanced up the stairs, could just make out the edge of Aiden's bed through the open door.

"Hey, girl!" he called. "I'm gonna order something to eat, you want something?"

There was a moment of silence, then the whispering of blankets. A moment later, Greta appeared at the door, wrapped tightly in the blanket, looking down on him.

"Sushi," she said.

"Sushi? Raw fish wrapped in algae?" Damien asked. "At three in the morning?"

"What makes sushi more weird than pizza?" Greta asked back. "At three in the morning?"

Damien considered it, then shrugged, "Good point."

* * *

Belinda Mitchell owned a small chain of art galleries in Chicago. Most of her business was legit, but she considered it her duty to fence stolen art or help move clever forgeries. She had been one of Aiden's first serious clients when he was starting out as a fixer, a business that relied almost exclusively on hearsay, before the Grid took off. Without Mitchell's trust and recommendation, things would have been significantly harder.

Since getting out of jail, he didn't usually take these kinds of jobs anymore. He didn't want to be set up for another stay in an intensive care unit only to be transferred straight behind bars. He wouldn't let that kind of mistake happen again and besides, cybercrime was the future.

For Mitchell, though, Aiden was willing to make an exception. He owed her that much.

Most of his past jobs for her had been pickup or delivery jobs, the odd situation where he had to stand menacingly behind her shoulder to aid in her negotiation. He'd knee-capped a would-be buyer, once, who thought he was going to double-deal a middle-aged lady in an elegant designer costume.

Mitchell had a steel core and a keen business sense, it wasn't her style to call in the middle of the night and ask him to come without much preamble or explanation. She had several people working for her, most of them on the regular payroll, she'd go to them before she turned to Aiden.

Aiden parked his bike a small distance away, checked the camera angles before he got off and strode to the back of Mitchell's gallery. It was shuttered up for the night, steel bolts on the back as well as the front. He heard the solidity of the door in the low thud his knock caused.

Waiting, he took a step back and tucked his hands into his pockets, surveyed the backstreet in all direction. Two dark cars were parked close by, under signs marking them as reserved for employees of the gallery. One was no doubt Mitchell's Adamant, the other was a shiny new compact car.

He turned his attention back to the door when he heard it unlock. It was pushed open only wide enough to see a narrow pale face hover in the dark of the badly-lit hallway behind.

"Are you… uh… Pearce?" the young man answered.

"No, I'm the big bad wolf," Aiden answered dryly. "What do I look like?"

The man hesitated, blinked several times and seemed to blanch a little more.

Mitchell's voice called from inside, "Don't stand there like an idiot! Let him in!"

The man stepped back, gave Aiden ample room to step into a narrow hallway. Another man stood in the shadows there, taller and broader and noticeably less nervous than the first. He gave Aiden a short nod, gaze passing over him and into the empty alley behind him.

"Thank god you're here," Mitchell greeted him as he walked into the storeroom, the nervous young man followed him.

"What happened?"

"I'm expecting a delivery tonight, but the man who was supposed to pick it up, he has vanished."

Aiden studied her. Carefully applied makeup cracking like fine marble, dried up after a long day. He sensed her annoyance with his silence, but took it, waiting for her to continue.

Several emotions crossed Mitchell's face, from vaguely annoyed to worried to disgusted. She passed her gaze over the young man before she returned it to Aiden, narrowed her eyes and said, "My assistant went by his place and it had been trashed. There was blood in the kitchen, but no trace of him. He had the sense not to call the police, but I'm sure the neighbours will have done so by now. Any investigation will no doubt eventually lead to me and I would like to have this deal out of the way. Neater that way."

"Why do you need me?"

Mitchell stared at him for a long minute, face hard in the white light of the lamp above her. A small smile broke her expression briefly.

"Plausible deniability. You're an independent agent. Whatever you do, it's on you." Her expression softened just a little. "But that's only relevant if you're caught. I don't expect you to be."

He returned her gaze steadily until she let the moment drop, turned away and walked a few steps to a laptop set up on a metal table.

"Apart from this hard to quantify hiccup, it shouldn't be difficult. I have my arrangements with an employee at the port, all you've got to do is hand over this envelope," she held up the brown paper, wrapped around a bundle of money. "Take the package and put it in the car, come back here."

"Hard to quantify?" Aiden repeated, intrigued despite himself. He liked the digital networks, the smart devices, he thought he might even like Blume's ctOS, because the street was finding its own uses for it and he had the finger right on the pulse. But he hadn't forgotten what reality felt like, either, and sometimes the virtual just wasn't as satisfying.

Mitchell looked back at him, one perfect eyebrow arched questioningly high. "Are you going to do it? Or do I have to go fishing for another fixer?"

Aiden shook his head. "I'll need some more details."

Mitchell studied him, too professional to start talking money this early, but clearly expecting him to do so. When the silence started to become uncomfortable, Mitchell glanced down at her laptop, but didn't do anything with it.

"Five paintings are being shipped from Toronto to a non-existent address. The package is currently in storage at the port, where someone I pay good money to expects to hand it over to the right person. As I've already said, that's all there is to it."

"What's special about it?"

Mitchell pressed her lips together, looked annoyed and impatient for a no more than a second before she schooled her features. "I don't know," she said.

Aiden shook his head. "But you have an idea."

She took a deep breath, tried to stare him down briefly, but finally relented.

"The acquisition of these paintings was a little… messy. They were stolen from a private collector who, I'm afraid, has some connections of his own. I bought the paintings from someone who desperately wanted to be rid of them and had no time or inclination to negotiate a fair deal."

She paused, clearly to give him a chance to fill in the obvious details if he wished, but he wanted to hear it from her.

"I assume someone else is after these paintings."

Aiden thought it through for a moment, then nodded slowly.

"I'll need the names," he said. "Your man at the port and your missing one, including his address."

Mitchell nodded, but glanced down at her watch and her mouth narrowed to a thin line.

"My assistant will text you the information," she said and Aiden saw the young man jump from the corner of his eyes.

Mitchell gave Aiden a hard look, keeping his attention fixed on her.

"But we lost enough time already. You should be on your way."

"I'll need a car," Aiden said.

Mitchell's heels made precise little clicking sounds as she walked across the room to a small cabinet, opened it and took out a set of keys.

"Dark blue van," she explained as she returned to him. "Parked in the garage. You don't have to worry about it, it's clean."

Aiden slipped on a pair of thin driving gloves before he took the keys from her hand. She arched her brows as she watched him, but didn't comment on it further.

"That's what I like to hear."

He took a last look around, then strode from the room quickly and made his way to the garage. On the way, he pulled out his phone. Information on the two men had already arrived and he forwarded everything to Damien, then called him.

"You got it?" he asked.

_"Yep, let me guess, you want all their dirty little secrets?" _Damien asked, audibly speaking through a mouthful of food. Some guitar music playing in the background, a female voice singing.

"Don't need that much. One's gone missing from his home, tap into the cameras see if there's anything going on around his place in the last 24 hours. I'm gonna meet the other one, just make sure he's not a rat. I'd like to know if he's got any gang connections, too. And, for fuck's sake, don't make Greta listen to that _wailing _you call music."

_"I'm a man of wealth and taste," _Damien pointed out, clearly grinning. _"Unlike you, Greta actually appreciates that. Stop insulting my music, your ignorance is showing."_

"I'll always make time to insult your music," Aiden said. He'd rounded the van once, making sure everything looked good at least to his cursory inspection. The dark blue van was parked along several similar ones, but it was the only one without Mitchell's logo decorating the sides. It was the same blue, though, a fit of vanity Mitchell might end up regretting.

Aiden gave an inward shrug, it wasn't going to come crashing down tonight. He climbed into the van, took it out into the street as the first murky glow of morning collided with the remnant smog glow above the city.

_"It's called 'self-reflection', you know," _Damien said. _"The thing where you realise your own shortcomings and accept the judgement of your betters. Especially when it comes to music." _

"Are you even working back there?"

_"I can hack the traffic cameras with one hand tied behind my back," _Damien announced. He was still chewing, though, and somewhere in the background, Greta was trying to sing along to the music, though she didn't speak any Portuguese and it was just more wailing as a result. In the privacy of the dark car, Aiden pulled a face.

"It's called hubris, Damien," he remarked. "It's gonna get you in the end."

_"I hear you complain, but you lap it all up like it's ambrosia." _

"So did your half-assed hacking get anything yet?"

_"One-handed," _Damien corrected, taking another bite of whatever it was he was eating. _"Half-assed is your result when you try to hack anything better protected than a calculator." _

"Hey, if you don't have anything, just say so," Aiden said cheerfully. "I'll only judge you forever."

_"I'm going to disappoint you, my boy," _Damien said immediately. _"Now here's a man just asking for it. A bit shady and stupid enough to scatter hints of it all over his online profiles. Sometimes they make it so easy, it's beautiful. He's got a habit of running errands for everyone who'll pay him."_

Damien recited a long list of the man's involvement with various fixers, even some Club members and a handful of gang-bangers, but it was nothing Aiden hadn't expected. He suspected the man had some more serious secret stashed away somewhere, a gambling or drug habit, maybe a lover, or perhaps an entire family he needed the additional money for. There was nothing there to suggest he'd sell Mitchell, though. Small fry like that usually didn't have the guts to cheat the bigger players.

He heard Damien typing, sometimes, he'd mutter to himself, some curse or comment as he hacked his way through the network. Greta had stopped singing and seemed to have sat down by Damien's side. If she managed to make sense of what Damien was doing, Aiden would be impressed and slightly worried, but the worst Greta would do to either of them was write an essay about career criminals for one of her classes.

It'd be quicker to take the Skyway to the port, but Aiden preferred the comparable anonymity of avoiding the toll and their additional eyes and cameras. He still had no idea what was going to happen and just how badly it could go south, Aiden preferred to leave as few traces as possible for the cops to sniff out later.

Traffic control backed up its recording to a server farm somewhere below Blume HQ up in Pawnee and Blume had a solid layer of protection wrapped around it. He and Damien had established reliable access to the live-feeds, but the recordings took some time for Damien to crack.

_"And now things get interesting,"_ Damien said, whistling in surprise. _"I have no cameras inside the apartment building, but there is a man entering the building, around 9pm yesterday. Comes out two hours later." _

"What's interesting about him?"

_"He's not in the Profiler database. That's some professional work. Not half bad, but of course this kind of manipulation is just asking for someone to take an interest. He obviously has something to hide."_

"He's a fixer."

_"No shit Sherlock," _Damien snorted. _"So… about half an hour after Captain Obvious leaves, a few workers go in and come out carrying suspiciously unmarked boxes, but they _happen _to be large enough for a body, if it's been chopped up a little." _

"Cleanup?"

_"I'm not so much into the dirty work myself, that's what I have you for, but yes, that's exactly what it looks like."_

Aiden considered.

_"What's the story, kid?" _

Aiden made a noncommittal sound before he answered, assembling the pieces as he went.

"Someone hired a fixer to intercept the pickup tonight," he said slowly. "He got to the man in his home, beat up on him a little until he spilled the details. Mitchell's a smart businesswoman, but I'm sure her employees know what's going on. So, this guy tells the fixer everything, fixer kills him, hires a few guys from lower down on the totem pole to clean up after him."

Damien chuckled darkly, _"You've been there?" _

"Bottom of the totem pole? Sure, but then I turned ten and people learned to toe the line."

Damien chuckled again and Greta joined in.

"Listen," Aiden said. "I'll be another fifteen minutes to the port. Do you think you can access the cameras there? Get a look at what's going on?"

_"Port is on a separate network," _Damien pointed out, didn't sound too thrilled about it. _"I hear Blume has plans to link it up to the rest next year."_

"Yeah, not waiting that long. Can you do it or not?"

_"What? Or you'll do it yourself?" _Damien sniggered.

"Don't make me. I only have a phone, it'd be a bitch and take too long."

_"The way you hack? Definitely." _

"Oh? And who cracked _your _password in under sixty seconds last weekend?"

Damien didn't answer, but failed to suppress a frustrated grunt.

"I'm waiting for that answer. Who did? Come on."

_"It's not really hacking if you just guess the password." _

Aiden grinned a little, though there was no one there to see it.

"Hacked _you," _Aiden finished in Damien's stead. "Still hacking."

_"Let's see you do that to the port network, my boy." _

"Not in fifteen minutes," Aiden said. "You like to talk when you drink, Damien. Fair warning for next time."

There was another moment of silence, then something brushed over the mic on Damien's end and the background tinkling of music faded away as Damien left the living room. Aiden heard the basement door, then the music was gone. Damien scratched a chair over the floor.

_"Give me twenty-five," _Damien said, rapidly tapping on the keyboard.

"Good enough, this once," Aiden said. "But send me a pic of the fixer, I'd like to know who I'm going up against."

Damien only grunted an affirmative and barely a minute later, Aiden's phone announced the arrival of a new message.

He picked up the phone, summoned the picture and stared at the blurry shot. It didn't have much detail, the fixer had been constantly in motion while he was within range of the camera. He was a tall man, athletic, dressed in some kind of pale suit. Aiden hadn't expected to recognise him, fixers weren't too sociable, even if they worked together for a job.

He tossed the phone to the passenger seat, flexed his hands on the wheel, but forced himself to slow down. There was no point to get to the port before Damien had found a way in.

* * *

_End of _The Fixer – Part 1_

* * *

**References: **

"... the street finds its own uses for things" Burning Chrome by William Gibson

Damien is listening to Fado, but quoting the Rolling Stones, go figure.

* * *

**_Revised on 03/May/2016 and 29/Nov/2016_**


	47. The Fixer - Part 2

**Author's Note: **The phone Aiden uses here is an equivalent of the Samsung i730 in terms of capability. He could probably hack with it if he needed to.

The existence of Profiler is a minor plothole, though. Smartphone apps just weren't there yet. It'd probably only run on a normal computer.

I got very annoyed with google maps during research and rage-quit the browser. I'm afraid I'll be winging that whole port setup. It's a fictional Chicago anyway. I don't think I cut any other corners.

* * *

**_The Fixer – Part 2**

* * *

"Are you in?"

_"Do you get that question a lot?"_

"Not once, but I keep having to ask you."

_"Well, it's a lot to take in, you know…" _

"I haven't got all night, Damien."

_"You've already wasted most of the night anyway. If you want to fly blind, you're welcome. I hear you used to bungle it like that anyway." _

Parked across the gatehouse, Aiden looked over what he could see of the port. Quite possibly, it wasn't as busy as it would be during the day, but there was still a significant bustle of coming and going trucks and transporters, around warehouses and stacks of containers. Tall cranes reached high into the foggy sky, only the lights were visible of their highest parts, moving lazily as they unloaded newly arrived ships.

"I hear your first attempt at this landed you in jail," Aiden said.

_"Rumours and lies, my boy," _Damien said. _"I'm in." _

"What took so long?" Aiden asked as he started the car and brought it back to the road. The gatehouse was manned, but the barrier was raised permanently, only an occasional searching look to pass over. He did have papers from Mitchell to show he was taking a delivery, but he didn't need them, just one more van didn't seem to warrant any special attention.

_"Bad news," _Damien said. _"Looks like the fixer's already there. He's at the warehouse loading ramp and talking to someone." _

"Someone? Profiler misbehaving?"

_"They aren't operating on Blume hardware, the cameras have been installed in the eighties and that's about their resolution, too. You're lucky they even _have _computers."_

"How do you know it's the fixer?"

_"He's in better view. Stop with the nitpicking, I feel under-appreciated." _

Aiden chuckled quietly.

"Send me a pic of the layout."

_"You got it."_

Aiden gripped his phone again and glanced down, opened the picture Damien had sent. Its quality was even worse than the one from the apartment had been, yielding even fewer details in black and white. A dark SUV was parked at the loading ramp, two men were talking, one up on the ramp, the other standing on the asphalt below, he seemed to be gesturing as he spoke.

Aiden made an extra round, drove past the warehouse to catch a glimpse of his own of the scene. The fixer was still arguing with Mitchell's contact. By the man's stance, Aiden guessed he wasn't happy about it, unwilling to take the deal, but unsure of how to get the fixer to leave him alone. In the long run, the fixer would simply wear him down, but Aiden didn't have to let that happen.

Aiden parked across from the loading bay, in the shadow of a wall of containers and far enough away the fixer would probably think he was just a normal part of the port's usual activity.

Getting out of the car, Aiden said, "Damien? You there?"

_"Where else would I be?"_

"Keep an eye on us."

_"Nothing better on TV anyway," _Damien said and cleared his throat before he added, _"Make sure I'll like what I see." _

"I'll take requests. What do you wanna see?"

_"Surprise me," _Damien chortled, but his tone became serious again immediately, _"What I _don't _want to see is you fucking it up. There's a lot of money in art and money brings the bad men." _

Aiden stood for a moment to survey his surrounding. At the other end of the ramp, a worker was going through several plastic-wrapped crates with a scanner, but he was out of easy earshot and wasn't paying any of them any attention. Other people seemed to be busy in the warehouse behind him, Aiden caught sight of a forklift moving more crates around. But none of these people were close enough to notice if something was off.

Aiden strode slowly towards the loading ramp, keeping the SUV between himself and the fixer as he approached.

"Is that the best you can do?" he inquired dryly. "Bad people? Who do you think I am?"

_"A street thug with delusions of grandeur," _Damien said.

Aiden smirked a little, asked, "Who do you think _you _are?"

Damien didn't respond immediately, he was chuckling darkly. _"All right, we're all bad. Don't let the other bad people get the better of you." _

"You found anything on the fixer?"

_"No, but if you get me a good picture, I can run him through other recognition software. He's not in the Profiler database, but that doesn't mean he's nowhere."_

Profiler's success was at least partly due to its extreme reliability. It ID'd people at odd angles and in bad quality picture or video, much more so than any other software on the market. It was an old story by then, repeated since the dawn of Silicon Valley, small startup with a good idea and some genius coding. Today, most of the company was owned by Blume, but they weren't too keen to advertise the connection.

"I'll see what I can do," Aiden said. He dropped the phone into his pocket without cutting the connection and pulled a switchblade out as he came close. He plunged the blade deep into the back tyre of the SUV. The air hissed sharply as he pulled the blade back, but it wouldn't be too audible above the general noise of the port, the hissing of trucks and cars, the chattering of heavy metal. He did the same thing to the front tyre as he passed it by, he flipped the blade and snapped it closed, put both hands in the pockets of his jacket before he strode into view, catching the last part of the conversation.

"… now, come on," the fixer was saying, congeniality and impatience warring in his voice. He lifted his gloved hand and the brown envelope it held. "That's the better deal. You can take it. I'm not telling, I promise, but just stop, you know? Stop wasting my time."

He caught sight of Aiden, narrowed his eyes at him. "_Excuse _me, but I'm having a conversation here. Wait your turn."

Aiden glanced over him, just enough to confirm his earlier assessment. The fixer had almost Aiden's own height, broad shoulders under a pale coat and a dark suit, all of it looked tailor-made, expensive. The way he held himself, Aiden guessed he wore a gun on his belt, right-handed or at least preferring the right.

He'd taken a half step back when he'd spotted Aiden, angling his body into a more defensive stance, giving Aiden the same critical once-over he was receiving. Some of his affected levity bled away, but Aiden made it a point to turn toward the man up on the ramp, pretending to ignore the fixer.

"You," Aiden said. "Nigel, right? I'm here to pick up a delivery. You were told about me. The name's Pearce."

Nigel hesitated, gaze skittered to the other fixer and back. He was young, used to hard work and shaped accordingly, but uncomfortable with and unused to violence.

"I…"

"Ah ah ah," the fixer made and when Aiden looked back at him, a vaguely offended frown had settled on his smooth face. "As I was _saying, _we are in the middle of a conversation. Nice to meet you, Nigel, by the way, and you'd be much better off taking my deal."

He walked forward and put the thick envelope on the ramp by Nigel's feet, then stepped back. "I'll just leave this here for you," the fixer said.

Nigel didn't move, looked increasingly like a deer in the headlights.

"My van's parked over there," Aiden said, pointed with one hand. "Get the package loaded, I'll sort this thing out."

Now that Aiden was there, Nigel was unlikely to take another deal, even if it turned out to be the better offer. The only reason he still hovered was because the fixer had already softened him up somewhat. He still hesitated, but then seemed to just grasp at the straw he'd been handed and hurried back into the warehouse.

"You'll sort this thing out?" the fixer asked, mock surprise making his eyebrows rise. He rubbed a hand across his forehead. "It's not my day, you know that? This job, I swear, shouldn't have taken it. More trouble than it's worth." He lifted his other hand and gestured at the envelope. "You know what this is? That's more money than this dick sees in a year and he rejects it. Loyalty and all that, _terrible _invention, causes you to make stupid decisions."

Aiden watched him. The fixer seemed to be constantly moving as he spoke, small shifts of his feet and sweeping gestures with his hands.

"Yeah," Aiden agreed. "How about you let it go?"

The fixer displayed more feigned surprise, curled the corners of his mouth in distaste. He tilted his head to the side. "I could, but I'm far too curious to see how you plan to _sort this thing out, _because from where I'm standing you look just _slightly _in over your head here."

Aiden shrugged. "Well, there are a couple ways this can go. One, we keep having a friendly chat until Nigel does his job, I pay him, we part ways. No hard feelings, no bruised knuckles, no reason for the cops to come sniffing around…"

The fixer tapped his chin thoughtfully, "I like that last one, but I don't like where you're coming from with it. You see, I have a reputation and I don't return empty handed. Makes a bad impression."

"You want to fight it out?" Aiden asked.

The fixer made an annoyed sound. "Oh come on, that's what I get for dealing with common thugs, no imagination. Here's a counter offer. This money here that Nigel didn't want, it's up for grabs. You pay him his share, I give you his and I take the package."

He'd swung back a bit as he spoke, glanced up when Nigel reappeared on the ramp, pushing a cart in front of him. The crate was larger than Aiden had expected.

Aiden shook his head, sighed a little to match the fixer's mien. "What about my reputation, though?"

The fixer shrugged, "I'm sure it'll recover. Eventually."

Aiden watched as Nigel rolled the cart down the ramp, leaning his weight against the pull on the way down. He took his sweet time with it, too, more than Aiden would've liked. Once the package was in his van, he could simply make a run for it, incapacitate the fixer quickly and be gone before the fixer even figured out his ride was useless.

The fixer caught the direction of his gaze, though and some long strides brought him right into Nigel's path.

"Hold it right there," he said and slung a companionable arm around Nigel shoulder. "Don't do something you'd regret."

Aiden had turned with him, but hadn't otherwise moved.

"How about I offer you the same deal?" Aiden asked. "Something extra for your bruised ego?"

The fixer arched his brows while Nigel did his best to shrink in his grip, despite being somewhat bigger than the fixer.

The fixer chuckled, leaned forward pretending to try to contain the laugh. He stopped and straightened, gaze fixed on something behind Aiden and the mirth dropped from his face. Aiden turned his head just slightly, guessed the fixer had spotted his deflating tyres and drawn his own conclusion.

"That's it, then?" the fixer asked and made it sound like a rhetorical question. He gave Nigel a little squeeze, then let go and stepped back toward Aiden. "I try to be nice here and that's how you repay me? Have some _professional _courtesy."

"To muscle in on someone else's deal," Aiden pointed out. "How's that professional courtesy?"

"Now that you mention it…" the fixer snorted dismissively, took another step, it seemed an innocent enough move, but he'd got himself out of easy reach of Nigel and the cart, in case he worked up the courage to interfere, but he was too far away for Aiden to reach easily.

He turned out faster on the draw than Aiden had expected, all the unnecessary grandeur of his gestures was a distraction and it had done its job, even if Aiden hadn't been keen on a shootout in the middle of a busy port. The place was too easy to lock down, not many exits, water on three sides. Even with Damien guiding him through the cameras, it'd be tough to slip away unnoticed.

When the fixer drew a gun, Aiden only shrugged slightly and raised his hands without waiting for the prompt.

Nigel flinched, eyes going wide.

"Hey," he said. "We don't want any trouble. Just tell me what to do."

The fixer barely glanced over him, keeping his gaze fixed on Aiden, who'd still used the tiny diversion to shuffle his feet forward a scant inch.

"Now what?" Aiden said.

"Give me your car keys," the fixer said. "_Slowly." _

Aiden lowered his arm, keeping eye contact as he put it in his pocket. His fingers slipped over the switchblade and he briefly considered the opportunity. He didn't know how good the fixer was and how long it would take to subdue him, how messy it would be, how much attention it'd attract.

He fished the keys out and removed his hand just as slowly.

"So, Nigel wasn't it?" the fixer said. "Get the key, load the package and double-time it, I'm not being paid by the hour here."

Nigel sidled over to Aiden, tense and unsure, looking for some kind of confirmation as he took the key from Aiden's hand.

Aiden nodded, "I'll handle it."

"Oh, how sweet," the fixer commented as Nigel hurried back, got hold of the cart and started pushing it towards the van. "How are you going to handle it?" He gestured with the gun, but didn't leave an opening. "Your handling so far… well, I'm not arguing, but I feel annoyed rather than challenged."

Aiden smiled faintly, "Let's not take the fun out of it."

Even without an outbreak of violence, they were starting to draw stares. Other workers were craning their necks from further along the ramp and inside the warehouse, some of them had already taken the first few steps in their direction. The fixer's gun was fairly small, it'd take another few moments until it truly registered for what it was.

Nigel had finished loading the van and the cart rumbled louder, bouncing on the uneven asphalt as he returned, somewhat reluctantly. He studied the fixer, then looked at Aiden, waiting for what was coming next.

"No bad feelings," the fixer said, edged backward, took the keys from Nigel's hand. He walked backward to the van, in a series of perfectly coordinated movements, he opened the door, climbed in, put the gun away. Aiden was never out of his sight, never had enough time to pull his own gun, even if he'd tried.

"What...?" Nigel began helplessly as the fixer drove off.

Aiden dropped his hand, pointed at Nigel. "Stay there," he ordered and pulled his phone out.

"Don't lose the van," he said sharply.

_"Sure, dark blue van, early morning light, no problem," _Damien said sarcastically. _"What are you doing?" _

"I have a plan."

_"Doesn't look like a plan." _

"Yes, that's how clever it is."

"Nigel? Something wrong?" another worker called. He'd stepped forward to the edge of the ramp, two more right behind him. One of them jumped down close by Aiden's side, making him take a step back out of reflex.

"No no!" Nigel said quickly, but without much conviction.

"Stay," Aiden said again, this time to all of them. He reached out and picked up the envelope the fixer had left. He opened it and checked the contents quickly, looked up.

"Okay," he said, raised his voice. "This is very important, so listen. Nothing bad happened here, no need for anyone to run their mouths."

"Are you kidding me?" the man on the ground said. "What was this shit?" He looked over at Nigel, frowned. "What dirty business are you mixed up in?"

"Hey, nothing," Nigel said, raised his hands.

"Nothing," Aiden repeated. "And it'd better stay that way."

"Who asked you?" the worker asked sharply. "Piss off before I call security on your ass."

Aiden took a step forward, right into the man's personal space. He didn't have a whole lot of time to waste on arguing with them.

The worker tried hard not to flinch, but he didn't outlast Aiden's stare for very long. Aiden caught the minute change in the man's expression, an indication that he would back down.

Aiden pulled the bundle of money from the envelope, looked back over the others.

"Here, no one said there's nothing in it for you. Two thousand dollars for each and we all forget this ever happened."

He didn't give them the chance to reject the offer, stuffed the first bundle of money into the hand of the man right in front of him, then stepped back and handed the others their share. No one objected once they had the money in their hands, though some of them were quick to hide it away in budding shame.

The other workers dealt with, Aiden walked over and got a hold of Nigel's arm.

"It wasn't my fault," was the first thing he said. "I did my part."

"It's fine," Aiden said. "Here's the money Mitchell promised, but be careful around your co-workers, they'll remember this, even if they don't talk."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't be surprised if some of them want in on your deal, others… well, they'll feel bad and they'll vent it on you. It's best if you keep your head down for a while. I'll let Mitchell know."

Nigel turned the money in his hand, more than Aiden had distributed among the others. He put it away in his pocket quickly, kept his hand stuffed there with it, as if he was afraid it'd drop to the floor and reveal everything.

Aiden let go of Nigel and left him standing there to make peace with himself alone.

He hurried back to the fixer's car, put the phone back to his ear as he quickly searched the car for anything useful.

"You still got it?"

_"Of course I do. He's hit traffic and had to slow down," _Damien said. _"Let me hear your plan." _

"In a minute," Aiden said, climbed back out of the SUV. He hadn't found anything, though it wasn't a rental. An umbrella in the glovebox and assorted crumbs and trash that tended to accumulate in there. He doubted it was the fixer's car, more likely it was just a stolen throwaway car.

"I need a ride," he said.

_"I can call you a cab if you'd like," _Damien offered sniggering.

"A parking lot will do."

_"Head to the right, past the warehouse and ta-ta, all you can eat buffet." _

"Don't lose the van," Aiden said as he walked into the direction Damien had given.

_"I'm not losing the van. As long as he's not going into any blind spots, we're set." _

Aiden rounded the warehouse and found the parking lot. Aiden walked along the chain-link fence until he found a gap. He stepped up on a concrete boulder to get a better look over the parking lot.

_"I'm still not seeing the bigger picture." _

Aiden sighed, disappointed. "Do you think I couldn't have taken down that pimped out poser?"

_"If you're angling for compliments…" _

"A place like that warehouse? Can't control it. It's too open and it's not just you watching through the cameras. Things get out of hand, shit hits the fan. This fixer, he'll have a _quiet_ setup for a meet."

_"His home turf." _

"Hmm," Aiden made. He jumped from the boulder and walked through the rows of cars until he stopped at the side of a battered looking 571. It would be easy to break into, but the owner hadn't even locked it.

"He doesn't know about you," Aiden pointed out. "Don't disappoint me."

_"I never disappoint." _

"Then there's nothing to worry about," Aiden said, bent down to hot-wire the car with the phone wedged between his shoulder and his head. The ignition sparked, followed by the low, oddly chirping sound of the engine.

"Okay, I'm moving, tell me where to go," he said as he drove for the port exit.

* * *

Dawn was slowly beginning to creep up on the horizon, just visible above the water, but darkness was still thick among the warehouses and industrial sites around the port. Shift changeover was letting the traffic grow, though. Aiden had no patience for the slow moving cars and their fatigued drivers. He wove his way around them, using even small gaps between the vehicles and ignored the traffic lights when he thought he could get away with it.

It wasn't comfortable in the car. The 571 had a manual transmission and he needed one hand on it, the other on the wheel so he had to keep his phone by his ear with his shoulder. He felt a thin thread of pain begin to run down his neck, darkening his mood. He was beginning to wonder if he'd made a mistake. That fixer wasn't a poser, he knew what he was doing. He'd tortured and killed a man just to get to Nigel, he had some kind of support network working with him, maybe something much more dangerous than a chain-smoking hacker with an overblown ego, which was all Aiden had.

Traffic slowed down in front of him, clogged the street so thoroughly, he had no chance but to stop with them. Aiden took a deep breath, caught his phone in his hand and massaged the side of his neck with the other.

"Where is he?"

_"Heading to Mad Mile," _Damien said.

"Any idea where he's going?"

_"How should I know? You should've asked him when you had the chance," _Damien said. There was the rustle of clothes, the squeak of the chair as he moved. In his mind, Aiden saw Damien lean back in the chair and settle his legs up on the table. _"Does your plan still seem clever to you?" _

"I got it," Aiden said, then cleared his throat when he realised it hadn't sounded very convincing.

He heard Damien move again and after another moment, he said, _"Yes, you got a problem." _

The line of cars ahead of Aiden was starting to unravel and he stuffed the phone back against his ear and dropped his hands back to the wheel and the gearstick. He pushed through to the middle of the street, using what gaps there were to overtake the slower moving cars before he could be bogged down by them. It earned him a few enraged honks and several passive-aggressive headlight flares, especially when he was forced too close and left scratches in the paint of other cars.

"What problem?"

_"He's just gone down into the garage under Fantastic Mile Shops." _

Aiden was silent for a moment, traffic pushing to the forefront of his mind as he hit a crossroads and had to brake hard before he slithered into the passing traffic, it was too thick and too fast to force through.

Fantastic Mile was a shopping mall, a mile long and full of brand stores and open nearly at all hours.

"Get a look inside."

_"What do you think I'm doing?" _Damien said, a little sharper than before, perhaps in response to Aiden's tone. _"But what's a good long look going to do? They're exchanging the merchandise, aren't they? Are you going to just keep chasing that van until you run out of gas?" _

Aiden scowled. The flow of traffic in front of him trickled out as the lights changed. He hit the gas and shot across the crossroads before any of the other cars had a chance to accelerate. For a few moments, the road was clear in front of him and every second of speed felt precious.

"No," Aiden said. "Can you slow them down?"

_"How, pray tell?" _Damien asked. _"I might be able to turn on the fire sprinkling system, but I don't see that helping much… Wait, ah… I see them. The van parked, no one else in sight yet. But… hmm. I could lock the gate down for a few minutes, but not more than that at one time." _

"Right, yes," Aiden said thoughtful. "Do that, but only if it looks like they're getting away. I… " he paused, considered. "Can you turn off the power? That'd lock them in."

_"You want to blackout the mall?" _Damien asked, then sniggered. _"I like that idea, but I can't do it quickly. And I won't be able to see you." _

"I'll need only a minute, I can handle myself alone for that long."

Damien was silent, but his concentration came through the connection quite cleanly. Aiden focussed on driving, glad for the respite. He took a sharp right turn, left the main road behind and took the longer, but hopefully less choked path through a residential area, where his main concern were parked cars on either side and some heads-on traffic, but it was generally easier to navigate.

For a while, Aiden had no other company than the humming of the engine and the rare scream of metal if he got too close to a parked car. He took a length of road on the sidewalk, because the street itself was closed down by a delivery truck parked in the middle. He heard someone yell at him and saw a man flip him off through the rear-view mirror.

Past the houses, the street opened up again. Traffic was slightly thinner here, moving a little faster and the streets were wide enough for him to just take the middle and ignore the other cars. He hoped no cop was on patrol and felt the need to reprimand him for his driving. Not a chance in hell he'd make it to Fantastic Mile if that happened.

Aiden was relieved when Fantastic Mile came into sight finally. Ahead of him, a well-lit arrow pointed to the entrance of Fantastic Mile's underground garage.

"I'm nearly there," Aiden said. "What about you?"

_"The contact has arrived," _Damien said. _"I'm in Fantastic Mile's system, but their power distribution is well-secured, I need another moment." _

Aiden swerved sharply to the right, took the front spot at a red traffic light to some agitated honking.

"I need to know the layout. Where are they?"

Damien didn't answer immediately, busy with something else and he sounded impatient and distracted when he said, _"Two levels down, northwestern end of the garage."_

After another moment, Aiden's phone announced a new message and he took it from his ear to look at the picture Damien had send. It was an abandoned corner of the garage, no other parked cars were visible anywhere in the picture. Behind the parked van, a fire exit was could be seen. The fixer had got out of the van, leaned with his back against the front, arms crossed over his chest, watching a second van right in front of him.

Aiden didn't wait for the traffic light to change, the moment there was an opening, he hit the gas again, nearly crashed with an oncoming car, but managed to evade, used the momentum for a wider swing and turned into the garage entrance. Fantastic Mile had a free parking policy during less busy hours, so the barriers were open.

"Can you close the barriers?" Aiden asked.

_"Barriers or power, you decide," _Damien said.

"Power."

_"Then no, I can't." _

"We need to work on your multi-tasking," Aiden remarked.

_"We need to work on your planning," _Damien shot back.

"Actually," Aiden started. "You're the only weak point in my plan."

_"I'm your ace and you know it. You don't _have _a plan without me. Here we are… power goes on your say-so," _Damien sounded a little smug about it, too. Penetrating a system this quickly wasn't bad work by any stretch of the imagination, especially because he had to do it without any prior knowledge and no time for any setup.

"Good," Aiden said. "How long do I have?"

_"I can block the generator from kicking in for ten minutes and the system reboots after fifteen if nothing works. That'll kick me out, though so you'd better be through by then." _

"Fifteen minutes is more than I'll need."

_"You're welcome." _

Aiden turned off the headlights when he arrived on the right floor. He passed a few random people and saw some parked cars scattered around the area, but they got fewer the deeper he drove into the garage. He suspected the fixer had someone working for Fantastic Mile, otherwise going by so many cameras wouldn't make sense, even if he wasn't identifiable and using a vehicle that couldn't be traced back to him.

He slowed down as the surrounding garage began to resemble what he'd seen in the picture. The 571 wasn't a quiet car, but he hoped he could sneak it past everyone's attention for just long enough.

"They switched the package, yet?"

_"No, it's still in the blue van." _

Aiden stopped finally completely when he saw the two vans on the other end of the garage, assessed the situation. The fixer and his contact were talking and Aiden spotted another man behind the wheel of the second van. A third man stood back from the group, beside he van. The fixer reached out to shake hands with the man in front of him.

"Damien? _Now." _

He didn't wait for confirmation, just hit the gas and the 571's engine roared up angrily, tyres smearing over the ground before the car shot forward. Aiden's mind felt sharp, sometimes he thought he could cut himself on it in moments like this, a surge of adrenaline that gave him complete control of the world and everything was simple and obvious. He heard the snap of the power as it went down, the slightest afterglow from the lights, just a snapshot of the scene in front of him before there was only darkness, cut up deceptively by the headlights of a van.

Aiden had aimed carefully, he knew he'd not have time to adjust the direction much when he was already in full spin. He hit the edge of the van with his car and punched one of the men over the hood on the other side. The impact made the tail of his car swing out behind him, swipe over where the fixer had been, though the man had managed to throw himself aside.

He heard yelling, dull sounds of flesh as the man rolled from the top of his car. Aiden, braced for the impact, didn't need time to collect himself. He kicked open the door and dove out, into the darkness, where he suspected the second man was.

One of the headlights had blown out and it hadn't been enough time for his vision to adjust, but he had a sense of his surroundings, edged into his memory, enough to predict where everyone was after a mere few seconds.

Aiden came up right in front of a man, lunged for his throat and smashed him back into the solidity of the van, putting the full weight of his body into it. The man's head hit the van with a dull thud, scrambling hands came up along Aiden's arms. Aiden dragged him back, smashed him into the van again and the man let go, moaning quietly as Aiden dropped him unceremoniously.

By then the van's driver had freed himself and stumbled around the back. He was bleeding from a split brow, just about visible as Aiden's sight began to improve. The man launched himself at Aiden with an angry shout that echoed around the garage, but he didn't have much finesse, confused from the crash. Aiden bent out of the way, letting the man's fury spent itself on empty air, then Aiden stepped into the back of his knee, hard enough to do damage and the man toppled messily. Aiden caught his chin with a kick, flipping him over on his back and the man stayed down, groaning quietly.

The deep sound of an engine starting made Aiden snap his head around, ignore the two downed men and throw himself back around.

The fixer had used the minute he'd had to get into Mitchell's van. The crash had boxed it in, but some rough application of force would free it. The fixer switched on the headlights, washed away Aiden's night vision and forced him to throw himself down blindly right before the first shot hissed past where his head had been.

The van pushed into the 571 and the metal of both cars complained.

Aiden had no interest in getting in the way of the van and in front of the fixer's gun. He pulled himself up and rolled over the roof of the 571, landed on his feet and swung up on the passenger side of the van before the fixer had time to bring his gun around.

Aiden tore open the passenger side door, settled a knee on the seat and dove for the fixer. The man had his hands full, had time to snarl, but couldn't stop Aiden from getting a good grip on his head and smashing it down into the wheel. In the same moment, Aiden went for the fixer's wrist, twisted the gun from his hand. He wanted to twist it around, press it to the man's temple when he recovered, but the fixer delivered a punch in Aiden's direction. It wasn't good enough to do much damage, but it forced Aiden to toss the gun out through the door, out of reach for both of them.

The fixer brought his elbow up, hacked it into the side of Aiden's face, followed up by pulling himself from his seat to bring his full weight to bear. Aiden snapped his head back just in time, didn't relinquish the hold he still had on the fixer's other wrist, though it was tenuous at best. He got his own free hand past the fixer's defence, found his throat and pushed him back into his seat before he could get up. The fixer twisted his hand free and with the same motion, punched it into the side of Aiden's face.

For a moment, Aiden's grip on the fixer's throat lessened, but then he dug his fingers in harder, felt the resistance, the man struggling and throwing a second blow, though this one sloppier and with less power behind it. The fixer tried to bring his arm up, lever Aiden's hand away from him and Aiden let go abruptly before his hold was broken. He shifted his grip and punched the man's face down into the wheel again, hit the horn comically and reached past the fixer while he still tried to muster a defence.

Aiden opened the door on the fixer's side. It wasn't easy to haul the fixer through the door, legs still braced under the wheel and even with the second blow, the fight didn't seem to be going out of him.

Aiden heard him grunt and it sounded almost amused in the moment before a head-butt burst Aiden's nose. Aiden reeled back, blinking, blindly punched for the man, hit his face and he lost his balance at the edge of the door.

Aiden shook his head, didn't allow the pain to confuse him. He could do this blind, force himself through. The fixer had landed awkwardly, but was already rolling back up as Aiden slipped behind the wheel.

Aiden backed up sharply, the van hit the wall and Aiden yanked the wheel so he could push past the 571 and the other van. He hit the gas and the van shot forward and into the darkness of the garage. In the rear-view mirror, Aiden spotted the fixer coming back up, his gun at the ready, firing several shot after Aiden. He'd aimed low, for the tyres rather than the vehicle, too smart to risk damaging the package. Aiden zigzagged the van and turned off the lights, became an unreliable target.

The shooting stopped and he slowed down just a little to orient himself. No point in crushing the van into a wall this late in the game.

He wiped at his bleeding nose as he drove the van back to the exit, much slower now, switching the light on to see by.

When he'd reached the floor above, he finally allowed himself to relax just a little. Even if the fixer made a run for the stairwell, he wouldn't be able to pick up the trail in the dark.

Aiden found his phone again, "You still there?"

_"What's going on?" _

"You can turn the power back on, I'm almost out."

_"You sound a little weird. You hurt?" _

Aiden sniffled ineffectively and reached up to feel along his nose carefully.

"Just a nosebleed, don't think anything's broken."

_"That's actually a pity," _Damien commented, acid humour spilling back into his tone to replace the concern.

Aiden took a deep breath. "Look, I need to call Mitchell. Keep an eye on the garage, I want to know what the fixer's up to. Don't want any surprises before I get this thing done."

_"Where would you be without me?" _

Aiden made a low growling sound, admittedly not especially eloquent and he heard Damien laughing, cut short when Aiden hung up. He took a deep breath, blood crusted his nose, restricted his breathing. He had an ugly metallic taste in his mouth.

He picked his route through the city with some care, adapting it on the fly to the traffic situation. He didn't want to slow down too much, present an opportunity for the fixer to pick up his trail again.

However, for the moment, he was glad for the silence and the breathing space.

It was true, though, he _did _need to call Mitchell, remind her not to sit on the paintings, they brought a lot of heat and he wasn't in the mood to help her weather it, or prevent it from coming back to him in some way. He drove for an extra half hour, keeping his attention on the mirrors and the cars around him until he was reasonably sure he'd lost any tail, if he'd ever had it. He had got out of the mess, though it hadn't looked quite so good for a while there.

Damien didn't call him back, either, so at least Damien hadn't picked up any immediate threat.

Aiden shook himself from the quiet revery of the drive, changed lanes and headed back towards Mitchell's store, while he thumbed through the contacts on his phone to call her.

* * *

_End of _The Fixer – Part 2_

* * *

_**Revised on 03/May/2016 and 29/Nov/2016**_


	48. The Fixer - Epilogue

**_The Fixer – Epilogue**

* * *

Damien's house needed a new layer of paint, the garden could do with a makeover and the fence should probably be repaired at some point. It wasn't too rundown yet and it wouldn't attract attention, though, and while their immediate neighbours were in a somewhat better state, no one seemed to care particularly much. People here worked hard, often more than one job, worried not only about food and their electrical bill, but also about the gangs and the prevailing police brutality in their tow. East Corland Park wasn't too far away, either, where the dealer density was higher than the trees.

Juliana didn't exactly like coming around here, didn't like it when she dropped off Marcus and had to cross the neighbourhood to do it. When she'd come by yesterday, she'd pulled a face and had a few choice things to say about the things she'd seen on the way. Damien suspected it was only a question of time until she'd stop Marcus from visiting and Damien wasn't entirely sure what he'd do then.

It was ridiculous in a way, for the first time in his life, he had something to offer other than a crappy pay-check and a perpetually foul mood. On some level, he understood Juliana's decision to leave, he disagreed, but it was her choice. He didn't know why she wouldn't want him to provide for his son. Who cared if the money was dirty if it served a worthwhile cause? Besides, he and Aiden were very thorough in laundering it…

_If _she ever tried to take joint custody away, Damien hoped he could play the system as well as he thought. For now, he thought sending Aiden along on body-guarding duty, if the neighbourhood bothered her so much. Of course, Aiden's presence just made Juliana's heckles rise more, but at least she'd be safe.

Damien stepped out on the front porch to light a cigarette, leaned forward casually on the balustrade and watched as the fixer got out of his expensive car, swaggered along the garden path as if he owned the damn place. At least he had enough sense to stop halfway to the house.

It was the first good look Damien had of the man and he was beginning to develop an eye for dangerous fighters and this one was no joke, though he seemed to put some effort into appearing comparably harmless.

"Your timing needs work," Damien said instead of a greeting, making a show of drawing on his cigarette, unimpressed by the fixer's appearance and deliberately looking away from him for a moment, dismissing him as a threat.

It had taken the fixer almost four weeks to track them down and Damien had already assumed he'd given up on them. The art job had been messy in its execution and for a time afterward, chatter on the grid and elsewhere had suggested someone was looking for Aiden. As a precaution, Damien had been monitoring the traffic cameras at both ends of the street and it had paid off, thanks to the fixer's conspicuous car.

The fixer shrugged slightly, tucked his hands into the pockets of his slacks, glanced past Damien and over the house, his expression cooly disinterested.

"You were hard to find," the fixer said and made it sound like some minor slight he was graciously not taking personally.

Damien took another drag from the cigarette before he answered. He was uncomfortably aware of Marcus in the house behind him, currently entertained by Greta and a batch of ice cream, but it didn't make him feel much better.

As far as Damien knew, Aiden's client had already resold the paintings and god knew where they had ended up at since then. At least Mitchell had been generous with the payment. Aiden had invested it into a shiny new Vespid, usually hidden inside the garage in case someone got stupid over it, but the Vespid was nothing compared to the fixer's car. It was like the fixer _wanted _it to be vandalised.

"Not hard enough," Damien said. After three weeks, the rumours had stopped, but the fixer apparently hadn't given up, like Damien had thought — and hoped — he would.

"No," the fixer said, shook his head in mock sadness. He raised his hands and tried to give a friendly smile, though it had more teeth in it than it needed. "But I come in peace. So, you're what? The tech guy? A hacker? The one who caused the blackout?"

It was a neat piece of conjecture, Damien was willing to give him that. The blackout under Fantastic Mile had been far too convenient to be chance, of course, but attributing it to a hacker was something of a leap.

Damien frowned at the man through the thin veil of smoke, let him hang there, waiting for an answer. The fixer had unsettled Aiden, not in a fight or flight panic reaction, but enough to take heed. Aiden didn't back down easily or often, but he was smart enough to pick his battles and hadn't liked the fixer looking for him at all.

"I just like to play," Damien said ambiguously and continued to smoke, wondering how long the fixer's laid-back attitude was going to last. Without Marcus there this weekend, Damien would have been willing to enjoy the back and forth, the prickling of danger, but now he felt impatient and annoyed. He wanted the fixer to leave before he could cause another mess right on Damien's doorstep.

It was then that Aiden finally decided to make his entrance and Damien took a slightly deeper breath.

When they'd spotted the fixer, Aiden had slipped out the back of the house and now came around from the side, long-legged stride fast enough to bring him behind the fixer, cutting off his path back to his car. The fixer's attention snapped to Aiden and he took a step back, pivoted on a heel until he had both of them in sight, though he could only really focus on one.

Aiden settled a hand on the post by the garden gate, looked over the fixer's car with every appearance of boredom.

"What do you want?" Aiden asked.

"Straight to the point," the fixer remarked, tilted his head at Aiden like a serpent. "I've got to say, you go for the throat, I can respect that. I just wanted to pay my compliments. I hope your nose has recovered?"

Aiden bared his teeth a little, "Yes," he said with thin humour. "How's your reputation doing?"

The fixer's mood immediately darkened, but only for a second before his smoothly amused facade was back in place. He crinkled his nose before he spoke, "Yes, that."

He paused, seemed to consider. "I had to pay back my advance and I'm suitably humbled in the process. I don't think my client is going to recommend me, but that's that. It doesn't _always _work out how you plan, that'd be just too dull." He glanced at Damien briefly, then focussed on Aiden again. "Don't worry, good people, I'm not here to extract bloody revenge."

"That'd be a supremely stupid thing to do," Damien said. "Seeing where you're standing."

"That's _it _exactly," the fixer announced cheerfully. "I'm glad you get it. Sometimes it's just so hard to overcome people's natural distrust. Just last week, I had to deal with a weapon's smuggler and all I wanted…"

"Do you always take that long to make your point?" Aiden interrupted. "They like to steel the wheels off your ride after sunset."

"_They _are welcome to try, but _you_ need to chill, my friend." He pointed at him with both hands before he stood relaxed again.

Damien sniggered quietly to himself. Aiden mostly only pretended to be this stuck up when he wanted to intimidate someone, a piece of acting that seemed to be mostly missing the mark this time. The fixer was ready to spring, though, despite the flaunted composure of his grand entrance. If Aiden was adamant about not underestimating the fixer, the man in turn was at least offering the same courtesy.

With the fixer's attention on Aiden, Damien stepped back to the house and picked up the camera he'd deposited on the window sill earlier. He came back to the edge of the porch and called, "Hey!"

When the fixer looked back around, Damien snapped a couple of pictures before the fixer had time to react.

"Who is this guy anyway?" the fixer asked in Aiden's general direction. "Your pet hacker?"

Aiden smirked a little. "He's my assistant," he said.

"I'm his mentor," Damien cut in, raised his voice a little and aimed the burning tip of his cigarette at Aiden.

The fixer quirked an eyebrow, "Whatever."

Part of Damien's senses warned him in the moment before the door opened, just enough time to school his features, he'd already turned halfway around by the time Marcus stuck his head out.

"Dad," Marcus grumbled. "You smoke too long."

Aiden detached himself from the fence and took one carefully measured step toward the fixer, a small movement, meant to distract him, but the fixer immediately picked up on it.

"Oh, how sweet," the fixer commented. He flashed his teeth at Aiden. "Didn't take you for a family guy."

"You don't know me," Aiden replied noncommittally, though very quietly and with undercurrent of roughness.

Damien snipped the cigarette into the dead grass, didn't care that it continued smouldering.

"I'm all done," he announced to his son, glanced back over his shoulder to make eye contact with Aiden for a split second and the slight nod he gave.

Damien pushed through the door, scooped Marcus up as he went, kicked the door shut with his foot.

Outside, the fixer only shrugged. "I meant that," he said, just as cheerfully as before. "It's sweet. Not my thing, of course, I don't do sweet. Families are always such a fount of complication."

"Say your piece and leave," Aiden said darkly. "Or, _just _leave_." _

The fixer turned on the path to face Aiden fully, took a breath and allowed his expression to grow a little more serious.

"So, you and…" he waved with a hand in the air, "your whatever, the two of you for sale?"

Aiden didn't answer, just watched the fixer in the heavy silence that had dropped the moment Damien had left, eyes narrowed at the fixer, not quite trying to stare him down, because this wasn't the man who'd take kindly to such a tactic. It wasn't necessary to antagonise him, either. Some incalculable mystery and unspoken, ill-defined threat was quite enough.

Aiden wagged his head a little. "We can talk about working together, sometimes," he finally said. "If you've got anything to offer."

A new grin split the fixer's face, self-satisfied and perhaps even genuine. He shook into motion, easily breaking whatever spell Aiden had been weaving.

"I'm sure I do, I'm good that way," the fixer said lightly. "Let's stay in touch."

He swaggered past Aiden, gave him a quick pat on the shoulder as he passed him by. Aiden held himself still, he'd expected it and figured it was one of the fixer's mannerisms rather than an attempted power game and Aiden was willing to let it slide. Some more connections among the fixers could come in handy and the man had proven himself solid under fire. Someone useful to have on your side, especially places where Damien was blind or otherwise couldn't help out.

Aiden turned with the fixer and kept a pensive eye on him as he drove off. He didn't turn away until the taillights of the fixer's car had turned the corner at the end of the street. Allowing himself to relax, Aiden finally turned away and strode back to the house.

Once inside, he found Marcus sharing the space in Damien's lap with the laptop. He heard Greta in the kitchen, helping herself to some more ice-cream.

"Gone," Aiden said before Damien even asked.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Damien said. He lifted the laptop, "I found your fixer. Interesting guy."

Aiden picked the computer from Damien's hand and skimmed over the information on the screen.

"Jordi Chin, eh?" he mused. "He wants us to work with him."

"What's your take?"

Without looking up from the screen, Aiden shrugged.

"Loose gun. Working with him could be lucrative. Could be risky." He paused. "Could be completely suicidal."

Damien grinned. "No drawbacks, then."

"No, not really," he agreed dryly.

* * *

_End of _The Fixer_

* * *

_**Revised on 03/May/2016 and 29/Nov/2016**_


	49. Nightcall: Empty Darkness

**Warning: **Angry (and a little messy) sex, it's also better not to expect a happy ending

**Aiden's new phone **(for your googling pleasure)**: **philips fluid flexible concept

**Author's Note:** Don't worry about the recent drop in quality, most of this story was written at the same time as Firewalker, so it predates the shark jumping I seem to be doing lately.

**Author's Remark: **This was surprisingly easy to write, considering how difficult I found Flashpoint. However, if you've ever checked by my tumblr, this is the story that sparked the little dialogues, so it didn't go down entirely without frustration.

Also, the amount of spectacular sex those two have is just downright ridiculous. There, I said it first.

* * *

[summary: before he can go to ground, aiden has one last thing to do]

[takes place in summer 2026, about half a year after firewalker]

**_Nightcall: Empty Darkness**

* * *

Profiler went smoothly through the faces in the crowd, the Lens tracking the direction of his gaze to assess who he was looking at, the software trawled the net and assembled the data for him, spooling it down right in front of his eye:

_Donna Dean, 36_

_Founder Infinite Freedom Org_

_17 unanswered mails (5 flagged sender ID)_

_2 missed calls (2 flagged caller ID)_

_**last social media activity: **__blog entry: "Thinking about organizing a charity event. Good idea or waste of money?"_

_**last internet search: **__damure hemophilia_

_**last online activity: **__enrolled in dance fitness program_

_**last email:**_ _reservations ; subject: reservation 08/29_

_**recent contacts: **__34 new [expand]_

_**medical history: **__new prescription: Damure_

_**employment history**_

_**voting history**_

_**social media aliases**_

…

_**new register entry: **__pending_

* * *

Donna stopped with everyone else as the traffic light changed, standing in the middle of the evening crowd. A seemingly never-ending stream of cars rushed past, each individual car hummed quietly to itself, but the sheer number of them still drove a white-noise hissing through the wide avenue of 8th Street, funnelled between the bright white and reflective metal surfaces of the tall buildings on either side.

The wind was warm, but harsh enough to tear loose strands of hair and whip them across her eyes before she shook free again. Idly, she watched over the sea of faces across the street, then glanced up at the glittering billboards above. Some complicated algorithm dictated the content of these billboards, depending on the people in it's immediate vicinity, perhaps even the direction they were going. It changed from some expensive cologne commercial to a trailer for _Night of the Fox. _

Donna arched an eyebrow, amused despite the rush of mixed feelings it kindled.

It wasn't a very good film and it stalled at the box office. Though, to be fair, it never had a chance to do well. From the moment it was announced, the production had been dogged by problems. All the dirty secrets had been leaking all over the internet almost weekly. There'd been vicious in-fighting between the scriptwriter, the director and many of the leading actors, all of it meticulously documented in email and instant message protocols that grew gradually more insulting and juvenile.

Blume had thrown some weight around and got most of itself scrubbed from the final script, acquitting themselves of any ctOS malfunction that had wrecked Chicago so badly it warranted Hollywood attention. The CPD had eventually got in on the act, too, once they figured out a film about their inability to catch one man in the city with the most surveillance wasn't going to make them look good.

The lead actor had got himself tangled in an ugly sex scandal just a week after filming had wrapped up, public and disgustingly explicit. Donna was fairly sure he wasn't going to be working in this town again, even if he managed to keep himself out of jail. Donna felt almost sorry for him despite how vile he was. He hadn't been miscast, although younger and far more handsome than the man he was portraying.

Piercing blue eyes stared down from the billboard as the trailer ended.

_"More husky than fox," _Donna had said caustically, curled up in her living room with Leon, after she'd ran out of good reasons to avoid it. In the end, she needn't have worried. It was too fictionally removed to make her think anything she didn't want to.

The flow of cars petered out, she trailed her gaze down and froze.

Aiden stood motionless under the billboard advertising his own film, looking calmly back at her from across the street, rendering all the people between them inconsequential.

Tension crawled up her neck, pulled the skin too tight and closed down her throat. But she moved with the others, allowed the flow of people to carry her across the street.

She stopped again, just on the sidewalk and she felt too close already, enough to make out the details of him. Time had chipped away at him until there was nothing left but lean muscle and sinews. Lines had carved deep into his face and age had thrown a smattering of silver through his short dark hair. He was dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt, an unbuttoned dress shirt over it, she guessed it hid a gun holster from at least a casual onlooker, the baton strapped to his belt. One of the new flexible phones lay like a glossy black bracelet around his left wrist.

She couldn't read in his face, but that was nothing new, she never could, she'd only fooled herself into thinking she did. A frown edged itself into her face, made her skin feel like it was about to crack.

Aiden stepped forward, when it became clear she wasn't going to move again before he explained himself.

"Call Leon," Aiden said, deep voice carrying easily over the din of the city. "Tell him you're working late and you'll have to turn your phone off, then do it." He lifted an arm, clearly to reach for her, but stopped himself under her unmoving gaze.

"Can we walk?" he asked and at least he remembered to dress his order up as a question. "I'm on a tight schedule."

She still just watched him, the Lens in his right eye exaggerated the green.

"Donna… please? We're already running late."

She narrowed her eyes, angry at the new breach of her privacy, at his audacity to just waltz into her life the way he had and at all the old wounds she thought had long since turned into scar-tissue, but somehow stung again now.

But she didn't think he'd be here if he had a choice. She nodded, silently, and fished her phone from her bag.

He reached for her a second time, but the movement was more deliberate, hovering his hand behind her back.

"Can we walk?" he asked again.

She shrugged, turned in his guiding hand and strode down the sidewalk by his side, pretending to concentrate on the phone in her hand and the asphalt under her feet, the pedestrians crossing their path who didn't seem to be paying them any attention at all.

Leon was a freelance illustrator, he kept his own hours, which was good because she had a full schedule even on good days, running her own foundations, consulting for the LAPD and others. Leon didn't care if she was late, it happened too often. He didn't mind if she cancelled on him at the last minute because a dockworker had found a shipping container full of people or a raid had turned up a brothel full of minors.

Today, though, his understanding made her feel like a cheat. His understanding grated on her nerves, made her even more acutely aware of Aiden by her side, the restless fluidity of his gait and the penetrating attention of whatever the Lens' display was telling him about her.

He led her to a car and she climbed in with barely a second thought. For all her misgiving, her justified scepticism about his motives, he must have his reasons for this and it would be best for both of them if they got it over with quickly and smoothly.

She sunk into the expensive upholstery of the car, wondered only briefly if it was stolen, if Aiden cared at all. Blume was burning out the shadow world he inhabited, she didn't know how much freedom he had left, how much access he still retained and for how much longer he could make it last.

He drove too fast, though, confidence about to tip into recklessness. She remembered how thrilled it used to make her feel.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. _What are you doing in my life? _

She wasn't looking at him, watching the lights pass outside the window, but she caught the flash of green as his gaze passed over her briefly. She wasn't a great fan of Lenses and he was looking too deep anyway.

"There'll be problems with your New Register entry," he said after a moment's pause.

"No," she said and knew it was a stupid denial. She'd always suspected it would. "You can't."

_You can't still be holding that leash and use it to drag me back. _

"It'll consolidate all existing databases," he said. "They'll connect you to me."

He stopped and she heard his indrawn breath. "I got a place, I'll explain when we get there. Safer that way."

She dropped her head back, stared at the patch of sky just about visible above the street as Aiden drove them away from the glittering lights and into the seedier atmosphere of Hunters Point. Some parts of the district had been redeveloped over the years, but this particular spot had resisted such change. Bulky apartment houses, grimy and weather-beaten, badly lit by yellow street lamps and only patchily surveilled by ctOS cameras.

In the car-park where Aiden stopped, the lamps had failed completely.

The car-park was nearly empty and the apartment building she followed Aiden to only had a handful of windows lit up. The elevator was broken and most of the apartments seemed to be empty, abandoned with trash rotting away in a corner, filling the stairway and corridors with a subtle, but vaguely nauseating stench.

Aiden stopped in front of a nondescript door, but rather than use a key, he tapped something on the phone on his wrist and a smooth, metallic sound came from inside. He turned the handle and pushed the door open, made an inviting gesture at her, mocking in its earnestness.

The inside of the door had been fitted with a modern lock and reinforced with steel braces. If anyone wanted to force themselves into the apartment, they'd have better luck going directly through the wall.

Aiden closed the door and engaged the lock.

Despite the security, everything had a haphazard look to it, clearly set up while not wasting time, never meant to last longer than a few days. The apartment was just one room, furnished with a kitchenette and a narrow bed against the far wall. The bathroom door was missing. A small folding table was filled with an array of computers and screens, cables crossing between all of them. Aiden had pulled the stove aside and rewired the power for his rig. Between bathroom and kitchen, a large flexible screen had been affixed to the wall. It came live alongside the other screens when Aiden walked in. In split-screen, it displayed eighteen different camera feeds. Most seemed to be from outside, corners of the building and nearby streets. Other cameras filmed the corridors and stairwell.

Donna turned on her heels, watched Aiden walk to the table and pick up a small pile of paper and hold it out to her.

When he saw her slightly perplexed look, he smiled a little and said, "Harder to hack, but don't hold them toward a camera."

She took the paper and glanced down on it. There was no light other the screens, unrelenting white and blue making it difficult to read, but it was enough to spot her own details on the first page. Name, date of birth, names of her parents, addresses…

"What is this?" she demanded, held the papers out accusingly.

"Your new identity," he said, but before she could voice an objection, he corrected himself. "Your new _old _identity."

She looked down on the paper again, judged there to be about thirty pages. She looked back up at him.

"Wouldn't it be easier just to mess with the records?" she asked.

"No, not anymore," he spoke slowly, shook his head and leaned against the edge of the table. "Things are moving too fast. Blume is gearing up to introduce a new OS and I don't have access to it, they are already running it in all sensitive areas. They probably have backups of everything, I can't do a clean job of it. This makes more sense, it'll be messy, but it'll give you wriggle room if you do get flagged."

"Okay," she said tonelessly. "Explain."

"It's constructed around your time at the Infinite 92. Your record from before is also pretty patchy and that helps, but the selling point is gonna be Quinn's auction. Full of girls with no documents, few records and plenty of contradictions. It's easy for things to get mixed up. One of the girls rescued was a Diana Ventura, she committed suicide in 2017. She doesn't resemble you much, but some of your more dubious records will point to her instead of you."

She stared down at the files in her hand. She said, "I'll never not hate being reminded of where I come from."

She looked up, met Aiden's gaze again, waiting for him to make some remark, but he just watched her. He'd dimmed the glow of the Lens, a small concession to her comfort perhaps.

"What do I need to do?" she asked.

"Nothing much," he said. "Read the files, I marked everything I changed. It's nothing substantial. You can still run Infinite Freedom, see your mother on Christmas and fly to Cuba with Leon over new year. Don't forget to Register."

For a moment, she considered, then said, "You know about Cuba?"

She wasn't sure if he looked caught or not, most of the light was at his back and what she saw of his expression was nothing but a strained kind of calm.

"Do I have to tell Leon?" she asked, tired of the argument before it had a chance to even start.

"Doesn't matter, tell him what you want."

He kept watching her for a long moment and she thought he was going to say something else, but instead he put his fingers on the phone, stared into space as he focussed on something on the Lens display.

"There's a number to a burner phone in those files," he said. "Call me if there's a problem, but it'll only be good to the end of the year. I have no more access when Blume upgrades their software. I'll call you a cab."

She stood at the centre of that desolate room, lit by computer screens and the only sound was the low humming of the servers, the only sense of movement from the changing angle of the cameras.

"That's it?" she asked, sharply, lowered her hand. She should leave it, should turn and go and never look back.

"What else is there?" He sounded strained and his composure seemed barely skin-deep.

"That's all?" she reiterated. "You come here out of _fucking _nowhere after ten years, for what? So you can 'save' me again? Protect me? Like you always do?"

She took a step forward as she spoke, saw the tension in his body, but he didn't move. A mirthless laugh escaped her as she said, "But what you're doing, that's not protection, Aiden. It never was."

Aiden had gone still, gaze fixed on her so hard she thought she could feel the weight of it. He shook his head and even that small gesture seemed to take effort.

"What else should I've done?" he asked. "Let you register? They'd charge you as an accessory, it'd ruin your life."

She was balling her fists, crumpling the files in her hand. Having to hold on to them was distracting her, annoying. Just because this one time he had a valid reason didn't negate all the other times. To this day, she didn't even _know _all his transgressions, what he'd done to enslave her.

"Stop trying to _own _me."

"I'm not," he snapped, the mask finally shattered all to pieces and he was _angry, _at her and the world, at the life he didn't have and the battlefield he was abandoning.

"Are you sure?" she sneered and took a last step toward him, pushed by the rage at the back of her throat. She dropped the files, she didn't care anymore, she'd forgotten they mattered, that he was here only because of them. She bared her teeth at him, stepped too close. He was still leaned against the table, though he was ready to spring, she still had to look up to meet his gaze.

"I've been owned, Aiden, I know what it's like," she pointed out, more softly than before, but the steel was still red-hot, threatening to burn her. "And you _liked_ it," she said, lips pursed around her teeth, gaze digging into his, hoping she could shatter the damned Lens with the force of her will alone. "The way I submit to you? You loved it. _Everyone _did."

She settled her hands on his hips, pinned him into the table as he drew a sharp breath and went utterly still. Without breaking eye contact, she slipped down.

She hated being on her knees, it didn't seem to be much of a deal, but the symbolism had always grated the hardest, worse than the hands on the back of her head, worse than the taste and the smell. It wasn't what she was doing, it wasn't whether she wanted to or not, it was because her consent didn't matter.

Aiden knew it, too. She'd told him, perhaps he'd even listened.

"That's the woman you wanted," she continued, watched as the contrast sharpened in his eyes, the digital green of the Lens against the black of his blown-wide pupils. He was about to move, she knew, felt the tension in him under her fingers, didn't have time to enjoy the heat of him.

"That's a bitter fucking lesson," she snarled as she dragged her gaze down, over his chest and the way he breathed too quickly for someone at rest, a thin sheen of sweat had pulled his shirt close to his abdomen and the outline of muscle there. His hips were already angled forward from his position, his arousal already traitorously evident.

Her fingers felt brittle, too numb, working open his belt, leaning her arms into his thighs to keep him in place and get closer.

"Tell me to stop," she said in sardonic echo, fully intending to hurt. Her neck strained and the tension made her skin so sensitive to the abrasion of jeans and leather, secretly yearning for the skin beneath and a small part of her regretted she had started it in this way, leaving him no options.

"Alright, _stop," _Aiden ground out, barely a heartbeat later, deep voice cracked from anger and unbidden lust. He reached down and clamped his hand around her wrist to still her movement. His grip was hard, very nearly painful as she strained against it. She froze, though, letting the fingers of her free hand linger on the edge of the waistband, hovering to slip inside.

She looked up at him, felt the strength in his grip but resisted being pulled back to her feet and he eased up, just a little. The muscles in his jaw twitched as he clenched his teeth.

"Shit," Aiden muttered. "I'm not a saint, but I'm _not_…"

She yanked on her captured arm, a half-hearted attempt, dragging on the belt still in her hand. His grip tightened immediately, bruisingly strong, but the pain didn't register as pain at all.

"Stop _lying!_" she demanded.

Her element of surprise was long gone, so when she brought her free hand to grip him through his pants to make her point, he snatched her wrist away instantly, as if he'd known she'd do that. He bared his teeth like an animal and dragged her up, finally, hard and fast. He towered over her when he stood up, held her easily as she leaned up into him. He turned them, pushed her into a wall, so hard it drove the air from her lungs, made her head drop back and hit the wall.

There'd been a snarl at the back of her throat, but it came out as a moan and it made her give a mocking laugh.

Aiden shifted his grip on her wrists, pinned her arms to wall above her head with one hand, but he with his arm outstretched, he kept himself out of easy reach, his hand on her wrists the only place of contact.

He swiped the Lens from his eyes with the hand, dropped it to the floor where it remained a tiny spark of light. He narrowed his eyes. The intensity of his gaze hadn't lessened in the least.

"What's that even prove?" Aiden hissed, but she heard the strain in his voice and knew the story he was telling himself in his head was falling apart. He was just restraining her, to stop her from doing something they'd both regret, but he wasn't backing away and his gaze kept flitting down, watching the curve of her open mouth.

She arched her hips off the wall, brushed into him and saw the flutter of his eyelids as he struggled not to close his eyes. He snapped them open again, sharp enough to see right through her, if he'd been able to think at all.

She kept rocking her hips, teasing friction, tethering on the edge of control, but she didn't know whether it was his or hers that would shatter first. She couldn't recall when this… _thing… _had stopped being an argument and become foreplay, her body reacting shockingly fast to just his vicinity. Whatever she thought she was proving, it was working both ways, a slow burning sizzling crawling over her entire body.

"Come on, do you think I don't want it?" she mocked and she knew he didn't, she'd torn that certainty from him a mere moment ago. She had done worse, she'd put _everything _he thought he knew about their relationship into doubt.

"I can tell _you_ do," she added, trailing her gaze down pointedly only to snap it back up.

"I don't know what you want."

She let her head drop back, strained in his grip, writhed against the wall. Even without touching, her other senses mapped his body for her. She couldn't see much of him, just his face, unmasked and raw, all his contradictions laid bare, now that he wasn't trying to play her.

"I have to stop wanting you," she asserted, but it was just another challenge. "Do you want me to beg?"

The answer flared in his eyes in the moment before he moved, stepped in close enough to feel his heat through the layer of clothing and the abrasive scales of their anger. He leaned in, ghosted his hot breath over her cheek, down her neck as she tilted her head to the side for him, tickling her exposed skin.

He was so close, she felt the movement of his lips as he spoke, sandpaper voice pitched so low she felt it more than she heard it.

"No," he breathed and sank his teeth into the tendon on her neck, slid his open mouth back up, grazed the side of her jaw. His hold on her wrists shifted slightly as he angled his body into her, trapped her by the wall and stepped a knee between her legs. He traced the fingers of his other hand down, from her throat over her breast and belly, deceptively gentle for a moment, then trailing pressure and making her nerve-ends catch fire.

"Are you done?" he asked, mockery tugging on his voice, but his steely resolve was breaking away with every ragged breath he took and he didn't stop touching her, didn't release her wrists or step away.

She turned her head to catch his gaze and hold it, but she wasn't sure who looked more feral and feverish. It didn't matter. She bared her teeth at him. She wanted to kiss him, but he was out of her reach.

"Don't you dare," she said, hard challenge crawling up her throat. "Don't you fucking dare," she repeated, writhed away from the wall into his touch as well she could.

She saw him close his eyes to predatory slits, felt the moment snap.

Without any more flourish, he hiked her skirt, dragged his fingers past the flimsy fabric of her panties, then up into her body. The first strokes were too rough, his fingers still dry. A choking moan escaped her as she rode up over his hand, though she couldn't get very far. His mouth was back by the side of her face, teeth over her cheekbone, tongue by her ear.

"What about Leon?" he asked, curled his fingers inside her. "Are you going to lie to him?"

A spike of icy shock washed through her, down her spine only to transform into something hot and liquid. It didn't count. Aiden was barely real anymore and it wasn't possible to cheat on someone with nothing but a fantasy.

"Or maybe," she said, though her voice stuttered. "I'll tell him… everything. You'll hate it. Information… you… can't control."

Her mockery was running thin, rapidly losing its priority as Aiden pressed the entire length of his body against her, tensed the grip on her wrists, pulled her up and she moaned, hung from the wall like a rag-doll.

"You're… humping my leg like a… dog."

"Well," he whispered, unimpressed. "You're soaking wet."

What _did _it prove, though? That she had more dark desires than the men she met? That the adrenaline got her off? It only proved he was good at catering to it. It meant when she hacked her teeth down into her lower lip to keep from crying his name he didn't flinch away. It meant the movement of his fingers inside her was unrelenting and irresistible. She shuddered, bit him harder because she lacked the presence of mind for a proper kiss. She peaked too fast for it to be truly good, a cry barely managed to come past her throat, spasms petering out as fast as they'd started.

Aiden bit the side of her neck again, then grazed his teeth along the tendon of her throat, sharp counterpoint to the crashing ecstasy. She'd forgotten how good he could be at this and he knew her body far too well.

She clenched her legs around his hand and thigh, soaking his fingers and his jeans and her panties. Gasping for breath, body still shuddering, she found it momentarily difficult to remember how they'd got there. It was easier to just let herself go, lean into the wall, soak up the heat of Aiden's body, enjoy the aftershock as it made her twitch.

Aiden buried his face at the nape of her neck, cursing quietly and through the white noise of her own heartbeat in her ears, she heard something that sounded like _what am I doing? _

His body tensed, a moment for reprieve and an attempt to collect and control himself enough to move away. A moment she didn't let him have when he released her wrists and she brought her arms down around his neck, jumped to wrap her legs around his waist and claimed his mouth, finally free to do so.

Whatever reticence he was still clinging to, it didn't outlast the kiss.

They tumbled backward until Aiden hit the table, the impact made it scrape across the floor a few inches and her knees hit the edge, sending pain up through her bones. She winced and a strained grunt worked itself from Aiden's mouth as he jerked back and their teeth clashed. Even now, she felt the dangerous tilt of the table as she slid her knees over it so she didn't have to let go of of him.

She brought her arms down to grip the back of his neck, his shoulder, tangling her fingers under the edge of the shirt to get at living skin. A shiver went through his body, a moment of harder tension and he pulled back a little with an involuntary snarl. It sounded like pain, but his tastes clearly hadn't mellowed. He bit her tongue in retaliation and she snapped her head back for only a second before he took her mouth again as if he intended to suck the very breath from her.

The table folded away under them, but Aiden seemed to have anticipated it, or at least he reacted instantly. Gripped her tighter and leaned forward, brought a hand up to the back of her head so when he tipped her back and down in sharp vertigo, his knuckles hit the ground and not her head, though his fingers were just as unrelenting, tangled in her hair as if he relished the chance to do so.

His computer equipment shattered to the ground along with the table, pulled connections loose and hit hard and metallic. The light changed, screens blocked or damaged, hard plastic scattering.

The floor was dirty, smelled of grime and dust, overpowered instantly as Aiden laid over her, arms braced by her head and kissed her again. She finished what she'd started with his trousers before, the same quick movements, graceless in her eagerness and Aiden seemed incapable of holding still, leaning away and into her grip. His fingers were everywhere, back at her skirt, dragging it up over her hips, then roughly pulling the buttons of her shirt loose, pulling her bra down to kiss and lick and bite her breasts, making her moan and writhe. She clawed up his chest and dug her fingers into his shoulders, the sides of his neck, the vulnerable junction of jaw and throat.

He gave a frustrated growl, finally sat back for a moment, his touch leaving her. He shrugged out of her grasp, but only so he could get rid of his shirt, tossed it away. She just slipped her hands back down, undid his jeans until he brushed her away to shove his jeans far enough down. She felt his fingers between them, over her, in her, around himself, but it was his gaze that caught and pinned her in the moment before he rocked himself into her.

She gave a low, breathy laugh, clamping her legs around him, arched her body into him without any regard for the slow-grinding rhythm he was trying to set. She fisted her hands into the shirt and yanked him down over her, she wanted to devour but he kept his mouth hovering just out of reach.

He rolled his hips and she gasped, lowered his head just a little more, brushed his lips over the side of her face, drew back before she could take his mouth.

"That what you want?" he rasped, voice deep, but wavering.

"No," she answered. She slung her arm around his neck, gripped the back of his head, though she found no hold in his short hair. "Harder."

His next thrust rocked them both forward across the dirt-stained floor, drove the air from her, making her shudder and moan. Aiden chuckled darkly, finally leaned down to let her have his mouth and she took full advantage of it. She lost any control of the rhythm when he complied with her demand, couldn't do more than writhe under his weight, but she could hold his neck and head and ravish his mouth.

All her nerves were electrified, made her so acutely aware of her entire body without any filtering. She _felt_ the bite of her panties in the side of her thighs and hips, shoved aside. She _felt_ the rub of her displaced bra underneath her breast, the lace at the edge of the cups scratching soft flesh. Some piece of dropped equipment kept knocking into her shoulder, but she couldn't be bothered to take her hands off him for long enough to kick it aside.

Aiden wrenched his head back, breathing hard. She let her head drop back, arched into him and let her eyes fall closed, basking in the additional spike of sensation.

She heard a low, dark chuckle and Aiden shifted, leaned over her.

"I'm not stopping," he whispered, viciously, voice stuttering with his movement.

She snapped her eyes open, caught his gaze, his face so close she could see his pupils blown wide.

"I didn't say _stop,_" she moaned, dug her fingers into his arms, nails into his skin. "I said _harder." _

She bared her teeth at him in challenge, heard him growl and he brushed a hand down her thigh to grip her hip, changed the angle and she cried out, louder with each successive, powerful thrust.

It was far too fast and too intense to last, everything felt hot and alive, too much sensation shooting spikes of euphoria down her spine, winding up to breaking point low in her belly. There was a part of her that still wanted to taunt him, see how far she could push, but she didn't have enough air and her thoughts scattered, overwhelmed. Her cry broke, rendered silent when he thrust deep, stayed there to grind down, just short, deep thrusts, hitting all the right places. Nothing was _still, _everything in her tensed and shook and shivered, control not so much lost, but ripped open and hurled away.

He said something by her ear, but she didn't listen to the words, only felt the low, dark vibration of his voice against her skin. He sat up, both hands clasping her hips and he changed his rhythm again, found some way to beat into her even harder than before, into the resistance of her trembling body, sprawled out on the floor.

Aiden pulled out of her while spasm ran the length of her body. The cold air hit her hard the moment she was empty and she snapped her eyes open wide, some remnant of control coming back to her, or just the desire to _see _him. To _watch_ as he, with a harsh twist of his hand, he jacked a last spurt over his fingers, moaned uneven and drawn-out. He looked utterly sensual, head tilted back and his eyes narrowed to glittering slits, though never completely closed.

She'd missed him, she thought, him and the way he tasted and the sounds he made.

She pulled herself up, tightened her legs around him with shaky muscles, before he even had a chance to recover. She felt him twitch away then go still, looking back at her past the lashes of his eyes.

She said, "I don't love you."

Amusement crossed his flushed face and for a moment nothing else happened. Her body shuddered in aftershock. Aiden folded his sticky fingers along her jaw, smearing fluids along her skin. Without breaking eye contact, she chased his touch with her lips until she sucked his finger into her mouth, tonguing the digits. He settled his other hand on her throat, just a hint of pressure, enough to make her go still.

"I don't care," he said. His grip tightened just slightly as he freed his fingers from her mouth and kissed her long and deep before she had a chance to swallow against the constriction on her throat.

She wanted to fold into his arms, but as the force of the kiss slowly began to fade, she remembered how they'd got there. She pulled back, but she saw no real anger in his face, no resentment of what she'd thrown at him, or perhaps he was merely hiding it too well. With Aiden, everything was possible.

She couldn't stop pushing, though, something had to give.

"Ask me to stay," she demanded. His hand was still at her throat, she felt the weight of it as she spoke.

He put his head to the side, regarded her in silence for much longer than she had expected. The corners of his mouth twitched upward, just slightly, but his gaze drifted away for a second.

"Stay," he said. "Tonight."

* * *

Dropped boneless, Donna lay on the outer edge of the bed. It was becoming uncomfortable, springs digging into her flesh and there were damp patches on the thin mattress. The air was cold and stale on the drying sweat on her skin, they'd kicked the blanket to the dirty floor, were it was an uninviting heap, too much effort to retrieve. Her body ached, spent and sore, evidence still trickling thickly from between her legs and her breathing had yet to return to normal.

Aiden's arm was caught under her neck when she'd rolled away from him, his lax fingers close to her face, more evidence drying on his fingers. She knew he wasn't asleep either, heard it in his breathing, the low thuds as he bounced his knee on the wall just slightly and the scrape as he flicked a piece of loose wallpaper.

All this time, and they still didn't know how to be close to each other without leaving bruises. They still needed to mark each other to make it real. It made no difference that the thought alone sent a last aftershock through body, but she was too exhausted to do anything about it.

He could have said _for good _when all he said was _tonight_, but she didn't know if it was his sacrifice to her, because it was too late to fix something that had already started out broken. She hated him for making her leave, but knew he wouldn't see it that way. For him, it was her, walking out on him, hanging up on him.

For a moment the words were in her mouth, she could taste them. She moved a little on the bed, felt the involuntary tightening in his arm, and forced herself to be still, swallowed the words down.

Instead, she watched as the night slowly began to fade. It was barely discernible at first, the black in the corners was less deep and took on a washed out grey gradually. The cold glare of the screens was less vicious and bright. It was still late, she thought, but it would tip and fall into morning soon enough.

"Weren't you running late?" Donna asked.

Aiden didn't answer at first, so long she caught herself wondering if he hadn't fallen asleep after all and the scraping she heard was something else entirely. Eventually, she heard him chuckle roughly.

"I thought I'd give us both an excuse to leave, if things got awkward."

She felt the amusement in her throat, but it, too, she swallowed before it could spill free. She didn't feel like laughing. She moved a little and she didn't know if she was going to curl into him or if she would get up. A spring found her thigh and she winced, shocked awake and into reality, snapping her leg away from it and before she realised what she was doing, she had sat up. Done it too fast, too, bright spots swam into her vision.

She looked for her clothes around the room, her shoes, her bag. There was the pile of paper that had caused all of this. The folded table and the debris of the equipment around it. She took a deep breath, steadying herself before she cast a glance over her shoulder and was relieved to find Aiden not looking back at her, he hadn't even moved the arm after she released it.

It was bright enough to see patches of pale, pinkish skin on his arms she couldn't place at first until she realised they were healed burns, not old enough to fade, but at least they wouldn't scar. She didn't know what had put the burns there and didn't feel like she had a right to ask anything of him anymore. Someone had tried to burn him, but hadn't been able to make it stick, perhaps the rest didn't matter.

The old tattoo was more faded than she remembered it and a grazing shot had sliced across it, marring the image further. She wasn't looking for the scars, though. She tracked her gaze over his bare body and yes, there were the remnant marks of the fights he'd been in. His body was densely muscled, sharper defined even than she remembered and the weathered texture of his skin the only visible concession to his age.

He stopped flicking his fingers against the wallpaper and ripped off the tiny piece. He stopped the slight knocking of his knee against the wall. She saw him take a deeper breath, the moment before he moved and she looked away before it happened.

For a moment, she managed to lose herself in the sight of the room around her, its desolate state and the empty feeling it left on her mind. It felt akin to tranquility, a tired substitute of it, but the best she could do and she didn't have to make it last.

Slowly, she forced herself to her feet, her knees were shaky and unreliable, a reminder she thought she should resent more than she did.

She went through the room mechanically, toes curling in disgust from the caked dirt on the floor. She found her skirt and blouse, shook them out and brushed away the flecks of dust moisture had made cling to them. She picked up her bra and gave one of her shoes a kick in the direction of its companion. Her panties were a piece of damp cloth she disentangled without much enthusiasm.

The bathroom was in no better state than the rest of the apartment, nearly empty with age-old discolouration streaking the tiles and the inside of the curtain-less shower. The toilet had no seat, but at least a roll of paper. The only indication anyone used this place at all was a toothbrush and paste and a handful of small packets of shampoo and shower gel, probably picked up in motels on the journey from Chicago. An empty beer bottle stood in a corner, but for all she knew, it could've been there for years.

She heard the low twang of the springs of the bed as Aiden got up. His shadow passed the doorway, but she didn't try to catch a glimpse of him. She heard the whisper of cloth as he dressed and a moment later there was a harsher clatter as he put the table up again.

She smoothed her clothes out some more, then hung them across the sink. No seam had ripped, thankfully, but there was little she could do about the stains and the dampness. She tried the shower, but it only made a gargling sound before it sputtered a gush of yellow water and she turned it back off. She shrugged to herself, too tired to care and used a handful of toilet paper and water from the sink to clean herself up as well she could. She tried to clean her face, too, but there was no telling the state of her makeup without a mirror.

When she walked back into the living room, Aiden was nearly finished with setting up everything on the table again. He didn't acknowledge her as he straightened away, picked up the chair to throw himself down on it.

Donna strode across the room and picked up her bag. She already had her phone in her hand when she remembered and looked up at him.

"Can I use my phone as mirror?" she asked.

Aiden glanced at her and, nodding, held out his hand. When he gave it back a few moments later, it was already set to the mirror app. The phone picked up no carrier, but she hadn't expected it to.

She would have to tell Leon, she thought, as she caught the first look of herself. There was no possible way she wouldn't look utterly ravished and she didn't feel like lying to him anyway. Better he knew these things about her. Aiden could've been honest with her on countless occasions and chose not to be. Look how that turned out. She didn't think Leon would leave her. He'd be angry, but he knew she was damaged goods, he could handle it. At least he wouldn't have to speculate and worry.

She combed her fingers through her hair, smoothed the short waves back from her face into a semblance of order. Her makeup was smeared, of course, and she hadn't been able to wash it all off with just cold water. It didn't matter. A hundred and one party-goers in this town would look the same as they made their way home in the dull glow of morning.

When she lowered the phone, she saw Aiden still slouched at the table, one arm hung casually over the back of the chair, the other rested on the table by the keyboard, facing the small screen in concentration. He hadn't bothered to make himself presentable, wore just the jeans and the unbuttoned shirt hung loosely from his shoulders.

She watched him for a moment and thought of how his skin had felt under her fingertips.

Acting on impulse rather than reason, she brought her phone up again and took a picture. The brightness of the flash gave her away, of course, but Aiden only turned his head to her and she saw he'd retrieved the Lens. She expected him to object, but his face remained impassive. He said nothing and turned his head back to the screen.

Steeling herself, Donna dropped the phone back into her bag and stepped into her shoes. She stalled only a little, doing it. Enough space and time for either of them to say something, but they both held their silence instead.

"Did you call a cab?" she asked and her voice sounded too loud in the silence.

"Yeah, but it's not here yet."

She took a step forward, for the door, but it did bring her a little closer to him, too.

"I'll wait downstairs," she said and took another step. Her gaze fell on the papers and for a moment it was hard to remember out their significance. She picked them up, folded them in half so she could stuff them into her bag, then stood still again in indecision.

"Aiden…"

He glanced at her, but she couldn't focus on anything other than the glare of the Lens, as it peeled away the layers of her self. She didn't know what he saw with it, what secrets of hers lay buried in the depth of the net only for that thing to bring them to light.

"I should wait downstairs," she finished.

She got all the way to the door before he even reacted and his voice stopped her. She lacked the heart to turn back, stared at the fixtures on the door, already unlocked for her through some command she hadn't noticed him make.

"If there's a problem," he said seriously. "Call. I mean it, no strings attached."

"Yeah," she said, but came out too quiet. "I will."

* * *

The cameras followed Donna as she walked down the hallway of the half-abandoned apartment building. The cameras watched her as she leaned her weight into the doors to make them open and stepped out into the cool light of morning. She wrapped her arms around herself as she climbed down the stairs, then took a step back and out of the wind to wait.

The cameras picked up the taxi as it rounded the corner and stopped for her. In an instant, the programme zoomed in on the driver's face and Profiler ID'd him, spewed out relevant and irrelevant information on him, confirming he was harmless and just doing his job.

The cameras watched as Donna left the doorway and stepped to the car, exchanged a few words with the driver before she got in.

Aiden took a deep breath, blinked only once, and when he opened his eyes again, the taxi was gone and for just a moment there was no movement at all in any of the camera feeds.

* * *

_End of _Nightcall: Empty Darkness_


	50. Down and Out

**Author's Note: **I feel like warning of **angst**, but I don't wanna. If _I _encounter that warning, I immediately hit the back button (the way I do on non-con, ooc or slash, self/reader inserts, au, fluff,… basically, I barely read anything). Besides, while Aiden doesn't have a very good time in this one, considering how heavy fanfic lays it on normally, it's pretty tame.

Let it be known that I hate (hate hate hate) the stupid nightmare schtick. Well, fuck it. It's in canon, however, so have at it. I console myself with the fact that Aiden's revenge _works. _It really does make him feel better (also, you _did_ notice I didn't let him have nightmares post-game, right?)

_Warning:_ I seem to have suddenly developed an inability to distinguish "it's" from "its" for the first time in my life. I mean, I know my English was getting worse every day, but I hadn't realised it was this bad already…

I'm also a _leeeettle _vague on how healthcare works in the US, please correct me.

* * *

[summary: aiden copes on a not-so-good night]

[takes place in december 2012]

**_Down and Out**

* * *

With every sting of the needle, Aiden sobered up a little bit more. The nurse had applied some local anaesthetic before getting to work on sewing his eyebrow back together, but the doctor had decreed no other pain medication, since the interaction with his alcohol level was too unpredictable for her taste. Or she was just punishing him and the half dozen or so other men the cops had dumped into the urgent care centre after they'd broken up the brawl.

Across the room, a police officer was still studying his concealed carry licence as if he expected it to suddenly vanish from his hands. Sometimes he paused to look at the curls of the gun-holster on the chair by his side, the bright red auto-6 it contained. Aiden wasn't worried, even without the slightly numbing throb of his head and the sharp, distracting pain, the tuck of thread on his skin.

The licence was real, though obtained through carefully first applying threats, coercion and then overpaying the person in charge. He didn't like the idea of a background check and he certainly didn't want to be trackable in any way. The permit would stand up, though. Aiden could tell the cop wanted his hands on the gun, wanted to check it against open cases, see if anything stuck and was desperately looking for an excuse.

"So…" the cop started, finally done with the licence. "What happened?"

Aiden watched him dully for a moment, past the elbow of the nurse. The thread pulled on his skin a little sharper and he forced himself not to flinch.

"I don't remember."

Not quite a lie, either, but it wasn't because he'd drunk too much and got punched in the head too often. It was just hard to _care _enough to remember. Been to a meet in the bar, stuck around for a drink afterward. Some guy was breathing on him wrong and Aiden's temper was on a short fuse these days.

The cop narrowed his eyes in annoyance. The other participants in the brawl would be giving him much the same answer. The bar was down in Red Serpents territory, no one in there would talk to anything in uniform and the only reason the cops had showed up at all was because the brawl had spilled outside and someone had dialled 911 anonymously.

"What were you doing in the bar?" the cop asked.

"Getting a drink."

The cop looked displeased at the answer, clenched his jaw and said, "We don't get many whites in that area."

"Didn't realise we're segregated again."

The cop made a low sound in his throat before he could stop it and clenched his jaw harder. Even through the muffling veil of alcohol and a bone-deep weariness, Aiden could see the thoughts working behind the cop's expression.

"You've got a record," the cop said and did his best to sound casual about it.

"Yes," Aiden agreed calmly. "I did my time."

After a moment's consideration, the cop decided not to make an issue out of it. He didn't seem like he knew if he wanted to be good cop or bad cop in this conversation and Aiden saw no reason to give him more than he needed.

"So… what do you do for a living?" the cop asked eventually, changing his tone far too quickly to make it believable. Like Aiden wouldn't smell the shift from a mile away. Fucking amateur, trying to trip him up.

"I'm between jobs."

This caused another lapse in the man's expression, clearly betraying his surprise. The gun alone was expensive enough to make it sound like a lie. Aiden's coat, thrown over the back of a chair not far from the cop, looked like real money, too.

"What's your profession?" the cop asked.

"Personal trainer," Aiden replied, gave the nurse an irritated look when as she stepped into his view, getting the scissors to snip off the ends of the thread hanging from his eyebrow.

"You got a job for me?" Aiden added once the view was clear again and he could trail a gaze down the cop's slightly pudgy form.

The cop blinked, unsure if Aiden was serious or not, unsure if he had just been insulted in some subtle way. There was another shift in the cop's expression and posture, a kind of internal admission of defeat.

"You know," the cop said. "You don't strike me as someone who frequents that sort of place."

Aiden said nothing. The nurse cleaned up the eyebrow, slathered some antibiotic on it and put a bandage over it. Personally, Aiden could've done without all the fuss. It hadn't even been bleeding that badly, but there you go. This way, the centre made some money, he supposed, and the cop got an additional shot at interviewing him. Everybody wins, or something like that.

"I don't have insurance," Aiden told the nurse and he took it in his stride. Drunks dropped off by the cops probably often didn't.

"We have some payment options for you," the nurse said.

Aiden nodded, kept the cop in his sight from the corner of his eyes. "Can I pay in cash right-away?"

This caused a small ripple of surprise to go through both of them, though the cop was the worse actor, or perhaps he just assumed he wasn't being observed.

"Speak to my colleague at the front desk," the nurse said. "That's not a problem."

Aiden nodded, "Are we done here?"

The nurse gave him a quick once over. He had some additional scraps and bruises, but nothing substantial, nothing that even properly _hurt. _

"Yes," the nurse said. "Leave the bandage on for about two days, after that, it's best to let air on it."

Aiden nodded and slid off the bed smoothly. The dimensions of the room didn't quite work for him just yet, but it wasn't like it was spinning and it _certainly _wasn't something he couldn't play down for the cop's benefit. He'd already caught him off guard very early one. In a way, Aiden decided the man still owed him.

"You don't seem to have any money trouble," the cop remarked.

Aiden stepped toward him, a carefully measured series of movements, probably got him a little too close to the cop for comfort, judging by the man's darkening expression, but he just would have to deal.

"You know how it is," Aiden said with a shrug. "Just trying to save face. This whole thing is very embarrassing to me."

He fixed the cop. "You didn't need to call my sister."

If he'd been more sober, he'd have remembered to dig his heels in and let the cop flounder, but at the time, it had seemed much easier to just give him a number he could call to get him out of Aiden's hair. Now, that he was thinking a little clearer, he realised the cop had been fishing for information even then. His behaviour suggested he had nothing but thought he was onto something. Aiden wasn't entirely sure what he _could _turn up if he kept digging. Aiden knew he covered his tracks well, but he'd been spreading himself thin recently, it was always possible he'd cut a few more corners than he should have somewhere along the way.

Aiden reached for the sweater he'd taken off earlier, eyed the blood crusted at the collar for a moment, then slipped it on. The blood had dried by then, it scratched uncomfortably. He'd throw it into the next best dumpster, no point in trying to clean the thing.

"It wouldn't be responsible to leave you to yourself," the cop said earnestly. "You looked very bad when you were picked up. And you were very drunk."

The cop looked him over. "You are _still _very drunk, sir. You hide it well, but I've been around long enough."

"I wouldn't say 'very'," Aiden remarked as he reached past the cop for the coat. He pivoted on his heels, caught the smirk before it could form on his face. He pointed with his chin at the gun and baton.

"Can I have those back?" he asked as politely as he could.

The cop put his weight from one foot to the other, it wasn't quite the step he'd need to intercept Aiden going for either of the weapons, but it was close enough to make Aiden stop.

"You didn't use them in the fight," the cop observed.

Aiden shrugged lightly. "I wasn't thinking straight," he said.

The cop shook his head, "No, actually, I think you were. It was a smart move. If you use the gun, or even the baton, there's a large chance you'd have seriously hurt someone. And then we wouldn't just be chatting."

Aiden didn't answer, not quite sure what move wouldn't betray him in that moment. The cop had screwed his head on better than he'd expected. Sloppy work, Pearce, watch it or pay for it.

He took a breath, smiled a little. "No, I really just didn't get it. But thanks, that's the better story, I gotta tell it to my sister."

He could tell the cop wasn't entirely buying it, but at this point, it wasn't surprising. The man had a hunch, though whether he just suspected Aiden of causing the brawl or whether he thought Aiden needed to be on top of the CPD's most wanted list was anyone's guess. Not like the two options were mutually exclusive, but as long as the cop had nothing in his hands, he couldn't really act. Still meant Aiden needed to get rid of him, the last thing he needed was some beat cop sticking his nose into things entirely too large for him to comprehend. He'd just ruin himself if he tried, Aiden would make sure of it.

"Everything seems in order," the cop finally admitted, made a tiny movement aside to indicate Aiden was allowed back at his weapons. As he slung the gun holster back on, fixed the baton back at his belt he remembered something else. Quickly, irritably, he went through the pockets of his coat.

"Do you have my phone?" he asked sharply. If the idiot had decided to _keep _it…

"No, sir," the cop said immediately, tone of voice and facial expression matched perfectly, he wasn't lying. "I didn't see it. You must have lost it in the bar."

"Shit," Aiden muttered. At least the cop didn't have it. He probably couldn't crack it, but it'd just spurn his curiosity on more, make him dig harder. He pretended to ignore the cop, if he had anything else to say, Aiden had no doubt he would, but for now, his silence was blissful enough.

Aiden draped the coat over his arm and turned to walk out of the room, feeling the cop stalk him into the bleached beige of the corridor outside. At the other end, he spotted the counter. The cop was still with him as he headed that way.

"If anything comes back to you…" the cop started.

"I'll let you know," Aiden assured him, knew he almost managed to sound like he meant it. Almost. The displeasure came off the cop in waves, but Aiden didn't need him to know even half the story, no matter how curious and suspicious the man was. He could try charging Aiden with assault and battery, but didn't seem to think it was a good idea. He had a dozen gang-bangers on hand for that and it made for the more palatable story. Aiden was just some guy who got caught up in something. Even _if _he hadn't got his acting all straight and the cop had a bad feeling about him.

The young woman behind the counter eyed him with practised disinterest that sparked into another bout of vague curiosity when he handed over the two hundred bucks he owed them, but at least she left it uncommented.

"I'm not happy letting you leave just like that."

Aiden turned a slow gaze to the woman, assessing her. The cop had left by then, went to help out with questioning the other participants of the brawl, an endeavour doubtlessly just as fruitless as his talk with Aiden had been.

Not sure what response the woman wanted, Aiden rubbed a numb hand along his jaw, intentionally causing the blooming bruise to spread its sting across his face. By tomorrow, half his face would be black and blue and swollen. He'd got at least one in the stomach, too, according to the persistent nausea climbing up his throat. Could be the drink, too, but it didn't quite feel like it.

"You won't have to," Aiden told her finally when he spotted his sister's slim shape from the corner of his eyes. He managed to give the young woman a wan smile that didn't seem to impress her much, not that he could blame her. He must look like shit and the white light in the corridor hurt his eyes, making him squint at Nicky as she stopped a few steps away. She looked tired, bags under her eyes, hair pulled back from her face into a messy ponytail. Her face was so blank it hurt to look at her.

"There's no reason to be afraid," the woman behind the counter said and Aiden snapped his attention back to her. She was starting to annoy him and maybe it was time she figured that out.

His look, though somewhat bleary, made her falter for a moment, but she picked up her rehearsed little speech again immediately, meeting his gaze earnestly.

"We can help you," she said and picked up a calling card from the rack on the counter. Swift fingers bundled it with a couple of leaflets before she pushed everything toward him. "If you let us. Think on it."

Aiden heard a sound he needed a moment to place. It was Nicky, chuckling quietly and mirthlessly to herself. Aiden didn't quite know what to do with the leaflets and the woman's helpful but misguided intentions, though he had a feeling throwing it all into her face would be counterproductive. Nicky reacted faster than he did, reached past him and picked everything up, used the same arm to hook with his, nudged him into movement.

"Thank you," she said to the woman who seemed disappropriately pleased with herself, but at least said nothing more.

The unexpected apparition of Nicky's humour barely lasted to the door and it was gone completely by the time they were through it.

Outside, the air was cold and it hit him in the face like a fist. It was the best he could do not to trip over his own feet without needing Nicky to steady himself. Nicky was still holding on to his arm and he wasn't sure if she thought he needed the support.

"Come on," he grumbled. "I'm not _that _drunk."

Nicky said nothing, only took a breath that barely made it to a sigh, but she only let him go when they reach the car and she left him standing by the passenger door while she walked around, unlocked the car.

The silence in the car was sudden, the same impact as the fresh air of before, but this was choking instead. At least, Aiden thought wearily, he was sitting down this time, allowing himself to sink into the seat. It took a moment too long to remember his self-control.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Nicky glanced over him briefly as she reached for the ignition and started the car. The roar was quiet, but better than nothing and at least she couldn't look at him while she was driving. He couldn't quite decide if it would help if he turned on the radio or if the insistent jabbering would just advertise his unease.

"Did… did the call wake up Jacks?" he asked after a moment.

He thought he saw Nicky consider the question, not because it would be hard to answer he supposed, but because she needed to figure out if she wanted to. Eventually, she said, "No, his meds make him sleepy. He didn't hear a thing."

He said nothing at the sudden relief he felt, it'd be too hard to keep from his voice so silence was better. He didn't think there was anything he could say that'd make a difference to Nicky.

At a stop sign, Nicky looked at him again and said, "Where do we even go?"

It took a while until he realised she was just asking directions, not posing some deeply profound philosophical question for him to ponder.

"I got a room at the Owl Motel," he said. "It's in Parker Square."

If he had his phone with him, he could've simply transferred the data to the car's GPS, he had already stuck his hand in his pocket when he remembered the thing wasn't there anymore and he indulged himself to consider the implications with the serenity of the truly drunk and depressed. Perhaps the cop had picked it up after all, Aiden hadn't been exactly on top of it during that conversation, after all. Perhaps he had simply lied about it. With the phone, even though Aiden was thorough about what the phone logged and didn't, there was still enough illegal software on the thing to put him away, even without linking that software to dozens of unsolved crimes in the city. They could find him in the Owl, take him by surprise before his hangover had even subsided…

At least it was still far more likely that the some other patron in the bar had pocketed the phone and was trying and failing to break its encryption. He'd run out of patience and take the phone apart, sell its parts in a pawnshop and any trace would go cold even under ctOS surveillance. Or, whoever still had the phone come morning, Aiden could track them himself and they'd sure _wish _they'd never touched it at all.

"I don't have a drinking problem," Aiden said and knew it sounded exactly like what anyone with a drinking problem would say. He wasn't even sure about it. He thought he might have been drinking more than normal, but he didn't attribute any therapeutic effect to it. It didn't help him cope, it didn't help him sleep, it was just something he _did, _sometimes. At any rate, he had more pressing problems, but he didn't want Nicky to worry, she had enough on her plate without him adding to it.

"I know," Nicky said after a while.

"I got mixed up in a fight," Aiden continued, even though she hadn't asked. "It wasn't my fault."

Nicky gave no answer and her silence sounded just like an accusation. He'd told better lies, he'd readily admit, but while his head started to throb slightly, it wasn't getting any clearer. He felt about ready to drop face first into his bed and that was that. It'd be one of the better nights.

"I'm sorry," he said again, but he wasn't even sure what he was apologising for. All the things he did, everything he'd ever done wrong, a mere _sorry _wasn't going to cut it. There seemed no point in even trying.

"You're my brother," Nicky finally said, though the way she clenched her hands around the wheel gave her away. He'd tried not to look, give her the privacy, but in the end they were in a small car and the glittering lights passing outside the window held no fascination for him. He'd seen it all, there was nothing new out there.

"You don't have to worry about me."

"Oh shut up," Nicky snorted. "It's not something I can turn off just like that."

"Fair enough," Aiden muttered, turned his gaze away from her, forced himself to focus on the road. "But I can take care of myself."

He almost felt the moment snap, the tension in Nicky as it unwound and lashed him across the face.

"Can you? What are you even doing?" she demanded. "You haven't come to visit us _once _since the funeral! Do you even know what that's like? For me? For Jacks? You think taking him to the park every other weekend makes up for it?"

"I shouldn't come," he said. "Not while Mom's still there."

"Come off your damn high horse!" Nicky snapped. "Whatever's fucked up between you two, it's ten years in the past."

"Yeah, well," Aiden said, seething quietly to himself. "But nothing's changed."

Nicky punched the wheel and the car made a little jump to the right, giving Aiden a tiny jolt to combat his tiredness, but Nicky steadied the car easily.

"And what are you doing when you aren't with us? Sitting around some motel room, getting drunk?"

"I don't drink that much," he pointed out, but it didn't really seem the point she'd been making.

"What do you _do, _Aiden?"

He sighed, tried and failed to lose himself in the seat.

"I'm figuring it out," he answered meekly.

Nicky huffed, but instead of snapping at him the way she clearly wanted, she said nothing, squared her shoulders as she focussed on the street again, letting silence creep back in.

Kathleen had come to stay with Nicky after the accident, giving Aiden a handy excuse for keeping his distance. It wasn't that they couldn't be civil to each other, but it was an old wound he didn't feel like opening up again, not while he was still reeling from the new one. He couldn't handle Kathleen's accusations. He especially couldn't handle them when they were true. Besides, everything that needed to be said between them, it had already been said and it had only made matters worse.

"Take a left here," Aiden said.

Unlike him, Nicky had had her life figured out. Steady job, two beautiful children, nice house, ruined marriage. Though even that last one was something they all had weathered well. Aiden wasn't sure what Kent was doing these days. He'd been at the funeral, devastated, but Aiden hadn't followed up on him. He probably had returned to Seattle, where he'd moved to for a job after the divorce. He hadn't offered to stay, but perhaps that was for the best. He'd never been good at emotional support and Nicky didn't need someone else helplessly depending on her.

"Next left again," he said. "You can see the motel from there."

Nicky had given it her all and Chicago had been good to her in return, while Aiden's life was a pyramid scheme and it had started to collapse around him. He deserved it, he guessed, everything he got and worse, but she very much didn't.

He barely noticed Nicky turning into the car park outside the Owl, but the bright lights passing over his face reminded him of where he was, just in time for Nicky to stop the car. The engine tinkled, cooling, and the city sounds crashed against them in waves.

The Owl was an interesting place. During daylight, it managed to appear respectable enough, somewhat rundown and in need of renovation, but neither was an unusual sight after several bouts of economic crises. At night, the Owl tended to attract a shadier crowd, hookers and drug dealers mostly, some burnouts hanging around the place to buy from either. Aiden could only imagine what Nicky was thinking, he couldn't make out her expression.

"Mom's going to go back to Aurora," Nicky said unexpectedly.

"I know," Aiden mumbled without thinking.

"What? How?"

Aiden blinked, shock climbing down his spine, but he thought he covered it well enough. If he couldn't see Nicky's face, she couldn't see his. "She's got a job and she's been here for two months," he explained, reasonably, but he was glad Nicky accepted the explanation without questioning it further.

She let go of the wheel and turned in the seat to face him. He could see her squint in the darkness, trying to see better.

"Aiden, you can come home," she said. "It's important to me."

She reached out with a hand, put it on his arm and all he could do under her touch was go completely still, too afraid to scare her off. He couldn't think of anything to say.

"You don't have to punish yourself out here."

As if stung, Aiden snapped away from her, shook her loose grip and opened the door with more force than necessary. The cold air hit him again, as cruel as before and just as unexpected as before.

"I'm not…" he snarled, stopped to force some semblance of calm back into his voice, sitting on the outer edge of the seat. "That's not it," he finished.

He was about to get out of the car when Nicky reached out again, clamped her hand around his arm and kept him in place with surprising strength.

"We all lost her," she said, voice strained, holding on to him firmly. "We all suffer, but we're a family, we can be there for each other."

For a long moment, Aiden didn't know what to say, held in place by her words more than her grip. Nicky sounded so desperate and lost, he could barely bear being this close to her. He supposed he just wasn't that strong, but he certainly wasn't strong enough to leave her there, even if it _was_ better for everyone, him and her and Jacks, too.

"I'm sorry, Nik," he said quietly. "I can't… I… I just need some time."

He wasn't sure where he dredged up enough willpower to pretend any form of control, but he put a hand over hers and very gently pulled her loose, squeezed her fingers reassuringly.

"Thank you for picking me up," he said. "I'll come back, I'm not leaving you and Jacks alone, but I need some more time."

Nicky wrapped her other hand around his, nodding in the dark as she slowly let go of him.

"Okay," she said quietly. "But I'm serious. If you need me, if you have a problem you can't handle, I'm there. I _want _to be there, okay? You don't protect me by cutting me out, I just worry more."

On the contrary, Aiden thought, he _was _protecting her. The less he associated with her, the less likely she became a target, but that argument probably wasn't going to fly.

"Give Jacks a hug from me," Aiden said and after a moment, added, "And tell Mom it's not personal. It's just better that way."

A trickle of humour returned to Nicky's voice. "I'm sure she'll say the same thing. Do you need a driver tomorrow? I could drop you off wherever you've left your car."

He shook his head. "Nah, I'll just take the L."

"All right, Aiden, time you got to bed," she said with another smile and although it was genuine, it just made her look more tired.

"You too, sis."

"Yeah," she agreed, even laughed a little and Aiden finally slipped out from the car, surprisingly glad to be back on his own feet and on steady ground. The anaesthetic and the booze was rapidly wearing off, leaving him weary and hollow.

He stepped back from the car and watched as Nicky drove back to the street, tracked her taillights with his gaze until she was out of sight around a corner.

The regulars hanging around the Owl knew better than to bother him, ignoring him or hastily stepping out of his way. He'd liked to fly under the radar better than this, but he supposed at least it wasn't a huge problem. Parker Square didn't have gangs the way his old neighbourhoods did, but if you left law and order far enough behind, you figured out another way to survive and one of these things included learning to pick your battles. The tall guy in the leather coat with the red gun? Yeah, well, let's not bother him unnecessarily, shall we?

Aiden went up the steps and made his way to his door. It took some fumbling for the keys in his pocket and then some more fumbling until he fit it into the lock.

"Sorry, handsome," a hooker said, smoking a cigarette not far from him. He hadn't even realised he'd been looking her way while he went through his pockets.

"Unless you want sloppy seconds, you gotta give me a few minutes," she added and took a drag on the cigarette.

Aiden only shook his head, too tired even to give an answer before he pushed in through the door and let it fall closed behind him, too glad to be alone.

He stood for a long moment in the dark room, listened to the quiet hiss of his computers and the faint music coming through the walls. He waited until his vision adjusted and he could see the shapes of the furniture by the sickly yellow light that fell through a gap in the curtains and the tiny points of light from the computers.

As he walked past the computer, he slipped a hand over the keyboard, woke the system from sleep and the monitors came on without any reluctance, the drive chattering quietly to itself. He'd need to find his phone and deal with whoever had pocketed it and he still needed to find the information he'd been in that bar to buy. There was a trail here, he could practically smell it, but it was leading right into Viceroy territory and he had to be smart and careful if he meant to take them on.

He walked past the desk and to the fridge, cast a dull eye inside. Half a bottle of scotch, one and a half six-pack of beer, a box of chinese takeout he couldn't remember putting there…

He sighed quietly to himself and picked up an energy drink instead, took it back to the computer. Already sitting down, he awkwardly peeled his coat off, left it bunched behind his back as his fingers rested on the keyboard and mouse.

He opened the programme that linked up to the cameras in Nicky's house. Jacks' room was in darkness, the boy seemed to be sleeping soundly, curled around a stuffed toy and huddled comfortably in his blankets.

Kathleen was dozing in the living room in front of the television, the flickering light from the screen played across her features, harsh even now. They hadn't spoken since he went to jail and even before that, it had been nothing but bitter exchanges. It had been easier to just avoid each other. And seeing Kathleen on the funeral, he'd realised there was nothing they could say to each other anymore. He blamed himself for Lena's death, but somehow hearing it from her would've been unbearable.

He drank from the can, pulled a face at the metallic aftertaste. Maybe Nicky was right and he just should go to bed.

It took longer than that, sipping on the drink, watching the video feeds from Nicky's house until he had himself reassured everything was fine, when Nicky came home and Kathleen stirred from the couch. They talked briefly and Aiden knew without listening when Nicky mentioned his name. The sour frown on his mother's face was enough.

Suddenly even more tired, Aiden turned off the monitor, let the room fall into darkness as he got up.

Groaning at his numerous bruises, he peeled off the rest of his clothes, kicked his boots away somewhere into a corner and finally let himself fall into bed, surprised at how welcoming the blanket and pillows turned out to be.

* * *

_The tunnel stretches on, traffic is thin and he sees the bikes come up behind him, like hunting hyena. _

_Fuck it, Pearce, you've got the skill, you've been in that place, you know _exactly _what they're doing, you know before they come up on either side of your car. You fucking _know, _and all your reflexes all the fucking useless years you spent cheating at this game, what's the point of it if in the one moment it counts, all you do is stare like an idiot? _

_There's so much he can do, he has the time. He's the better driver, the better gunman, too, even if he keeps the gun locked away in the glove compartment when he's riding with the children. The car's solid, not a muscle car but reliable enough. All he needs to do is drive into them, a little slide of the wheel, touch and go, the bike crashes but he'll be able to steady the car, take care of the other guy on the other bike. They'll be left smears in the tunnel and a few scratches on his ride, a brief shock for the kids and a stern lecture from Nicky later. _

_He can hit the brakes, just hard enough so one of the bikers shoots past, take the car to the left and swipe the back wheel away from him. He can't see the other biker, but he's somewhere behind, perhaps he'll just collide with them, harmlessly. _

_He's been there. He's done it. Been on the receiving end, too, and it's not a pleasant memory. It can be done and easily. At this speed, no biker wants to fuck up. _

_Aiden's there, in that moment in the tunnel with all his skills and all his tools, but at the same time, he's _not. _The criminal in him isn't there. The thug, the gang-banger, the fixer, the social engineer, the con-man, the hitman… they aren't there with him. They have no place in that car with two precious children. It's the point, he doesn't _need _them here, he was never supposed to. He thinks he can have it all, can have the thrill of the fast cars and the money and reassuring weight of a gun in his hand. He can have the intoxicating rush of victory. _

_And he thinks he knows he can have _this_, too, where he won't need to be ready to fight. _

_But the truth is, he can't. _

_He's too slow, his reaction comes from too far away, from the other world he inhabits most of his nights and days, lightyears away because that's where he leaves it when he picks up Lena and Jacks. _

_So all he does is stare down the barrel of a gun like he's never seen one before, like it's a toy they used to play cowboy and indians in Nicky's backyard and he pretends to be afraid. It renders him normal and being normal, in that moment, means he's helpless and lost, out of his depth. _

_Looking back, he just wants that bullet to the face. _

_He can never remember the crash itself. _

_Later, they tell him he either never lost consciousness or regained it quickly. They even played him the recording of his 911 call. The cops who came into the hospital to question him, they tell him first responders found him digging through the wreckage. He has the cuts and burns on his hands to prove it, too, sliced up to his elbows. They tell him he's saved Jacks, freed him from the car, broken but breathing. _

_They say he pulls Lena from the car, too, what was left of her… _

_Every time his mind replays it, though, the scene cuts out with the gunshot. _

_Every time he wakes up, he _still _wants that bullet. _

* * *

_End of _Down and Out_

* * *

**Revised on **_19/May/2016_


	51. Quaint Old World: Dissembled

[summary: the doors are closing and aiden settles uncomfortably into retirement.]

[this takes place in 2026]

**_Quaint Old World: Dissembled**

* * *

**[Audio Log: 11/1/2026, 11:08 pm]**

It's all set up now. I took most of my rig. Stupid. It'll just implicate me if someone snoops around. I installed everything in old computer cases, maybe it'll fool someone. No flexible screens, they don't fit the atmosphere. I won't have enough power to run most of it anyway. It's just a generator for power, running on gas. I can link up to the internet through a satellite connection, but let's not do that unless I have to. It's a self-contained network now, no other wifi capabilities, can't make them secure…

…can't believe it… it's like Frewer's setup…

Well, I guess he knew what he was doing.

There's a small settlement about an hour's drive from here. It's a dirt road, doesn't invite a lot of traffic and tourists know better. You can't actually see the log cabin from the road, gives me maybe an extra minute if someone shows up.

Anyway… yeah, all set. Home sweet fucking home.

Been a long day, I should get to sleep.

* * *

Aiden reached into the box by his side and pulled out a broken piece of computer equipment, part of an old hard-drive, it's data as securely deleted as was humanly possible. _Not that secure, then. _It'll have to do. Got to find it first. He tossed it in his hand a few times, gauged its weight, calculated — though only in the back his mind, where he didn't like to look — exactly how it it would fly, the trajectory it would have. It was, he thought, a little like cheating. It'd be a hundred times harder if he actually threw the thing truly randomly.

As it was, without any other preamble, he launched the hard-drive over his shoulder. He whipped around after it, brought his gun up and took aim in that ridiculously long second before the drive dipped too low and he'd be unable to spot it against the background of dark trees. He shot it from the sky, but didn't even wait to see where it landed before he turned back to the box.

This time, he retrieved an old smartphone. Part of its casing had been melted away, he didn't think it was still functional.

The wind was picking up steadily, chasing steel-grey clouds low across the sky, pulling on his coat. He'd have incorporate the wind, it'd change the flight trajectories of the phone, even the bullet.

He threw the phone over his shoulder, turned and shot.

_It's probably littering. _

Not on my own damn property.

He should maybe keep some of these things for replacement parts, but he'd taken too much stuff with him anyway. When tearing down his hideouts and safe-houses in Chicago, he'd somehow acquired a truckload of stuff he somehow had convinced himself he still needed. It wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind when he envisioned his minimalist off-the-grid retirement in a log cabin two and half hours out from Chicago and still a good forty minutes from the nearest settlement, a wannabe quaint, but in fact rather shoddy town with the charming name of Gallows.

Most of this stuff would be obsolete long before he ever got to use it, never mind that he wasn't even supposed to _have _that kind of thing. He'd considered going full offliner, but it probably put him under _more _scrutiny, not less. Anyone without some social media and a plethora of smart devises had to have something to hide, after all.

Gallows was linked up to ctOS, but it was the low-end of the deal. He guessed he still had a few good months with it, and then a few bad months, before he really did need to keep out of sight completely.

He reached into the box again, picked up another piece of useless hardware, ripped from his powerful rig only a week before.

_Feels a bit like guts, don't you think? _

This, too, he tossed over his shoulder and shot from the sky. It was rather satisfying, if he was honest. In Chicago, he'd been used to the suppressor's low snap, but the unimpeded echo of the bang beating up and down the length of the valley felt surprisingly good, a shot of adrenaline right in his veins.

Someone was clapping behind him.

If he'd seemed fast before, this was something else. He snapped around, didn't just bring the gun around but let go with his right, catch it with the left and aimed with an outstretched hand.

The man on the path a good few yards away, stopped in mid-cap.

"Hold your horses," the man said. "I come in peace."

Aiden recognised him. His wife, Joyce, owned the a grocery store in Gallows, but Aiden hadn't spoken with him yet. He was small and wiry, collecting a little fat around his midsection, a few years younger than Aiden himself.

_Showtime._

Aiden relaxed, thought it was hard to do for the first few seconds, putting on the role like an ill-fitting piece of clothing.

_Better make that fit, though. You'll be staying in it. _

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear you," Aiden said, smiled and lowered the gun.

"You've got some skill there," he said as he stepped close. "The name's Nate, by the way."

He held out his hand and Aiden shook it.

"Bevan," Aiden said.

"Yeah, the wife said you've been around," Nate nodded. "Settling in all right?"

Aiden regarded him for a moment. "So far," he said noncommittally.

Nate gave Aiden a friendly slap on the shoulder. "Ah, I'm sorry, I don't mean to pry or anything, but Gallows is a small town and new faces don't happen by so often. Ain't none of my business what you're doing out here, but when I drove up here, I came by your cabin and I noticed you're short on firewood."

Aiden said nothing, but his confusion must have shown on his face, because Nate chuckled a little to himself.

"Not the nature-boy, are you? That pile of wood you've got, it'll run out around January and by then, it'll be a bitch to find someone to buy from. Bit late in the year to chop up enough yourself, too."

Nate was right on both counts, though. He'd thought the wood looked like an impressive enough stack, but he really had no idea how much he'd need. He'd need to step up his game if he wasn't going to be a very pathetic-looking retired hacker at some point in the future.

"Do you know someone?" Aiden asked.

Nate grinned, happy Aiden was playing so well with his cues. "Yep, cousin of mine. Gonna send him over tomorrow, if it's all right with you."

"Yeah, sure," Aiden nodded.

Nate hesitated.

_Not quite true, he wants to pry like fuck, he just doesn't want to _seem _like he does. Come on, don't keep him waiting._

Aiden looked down on the box, scowled a little, then shrugged and sighed.

"This is my wife's stuff," he explained. "_Ex-_wife now. Kept it just so I could blow it up." He shrugged again. "Thought it'd make me feel better."

Nate chuckled. "So, you're from Chicago? You sound like it."

"Yeah, sort of. Always wanted to get away from the city, though."

Nate studied him again, his glance wandered down to the gun briefly.

"You're a good shot," he remarked.

Aiden gave him another smile, obviously flattered. "Thanks. The wife always said… the _ex-_wife always said it's the only thing I'm good at. I told her I'd join a circus, you know, the stupid shit you say when you're angry?"

"I hear you," Nate chuckled. "You're looking for self-reliance?"

Aiden pursed his lips, pretended to think, than turned a sharp eye on Nate. "In a way," he admitted, lifted his hands up, gesturing. "But not like the offline nut-jobs. Need my phone and my net, right? But maybe not so much of that other crap anymore. Got to get away from it all."

"Plenty of people like that," Nate nodded understandingly. "Can't blame them. I mean, some is pretty decent. Got a pretty good weather forecast now, even up here. GPS is good for trapping, too. Don't get so many lost hikers, either. Used to be, every other winter someone'd trip and fall and the whole place would be full of mountain rangers and rescue teams. Forget about trapping then, too. Not a deer in sight for weeks after that goes down."

He thought about it for another moment. "So, city boy that you are, you up for some 101 hunting? I'm heading out with my boy this weekend, if you want to tag along."

Aiden watched the man for another moment, than pulled a small scowl. "You got that backward," he pointed out. "I grew up on the road. My parents lived out of a trailer park, south of Pawnee. Followed the ex-wife to Chicago, thought it was a smart move at the time."

Again, Nate nodded and seemed to grew to like Aiden more with every random morsel of information he was being given. It was a little clumsy, Aiden thought, but he had time. In the months — and _years _— he could cement his new image in the consciousness of the people of Gallows. No matter how careful he was, he could never be absolutely certain no bounty hunter would stumble on his tracks. When that happened, well, he'd only hear about Bevan Smith, who'd been living up in his log cabin for ages: Trailer trash, once, tried to make it in the big city and failed. Came out here with his tail between his legs. Oh, you mean he's got a record? Well, lots of people do. Doesn't sound like your 'vigilante', if you ask me. I mean, he's a good hunter, but that's half the town and have you actually _seen _the dude?

"But…" Aiden continued before Nate had a chance to back away. "I've never hunted. More of a fast-food kind of guy. If it's no bother…" he glanced around, took in the dark green tree tops and the bleak mountains. "But I'd take that 101."

"Consider it a win-win, buddy. If you shoot a rifle like you shoot that handgun, we'll all go home happy. You ever disembowelled a fresh kill?"

_Seen plenty of bowls, not sure it counts. _

"Not really…" Aiden said slowly. "I once saw someone ripped up in a car accident." He pulled a face. "But I guess I didn't have to eat that."

Nate chuckled to himself. "No, better be prepared than. Tends to smell, too. But the barbecue later is on me and if you can't stomach it, Joyce makes the best potato salad in the county."

Aiden gave Nate a vaguely scandalised look. "I can handle it, don't worry about me."

This didn't seem to impress Nate too much.

"We'll see, but don't worry, like I said, no one's gonna judge," Nate assured him. "They don't breed them in the city for that."

_Breed them just fine, thanks. _

Aiden spread out his hands. "Hey, I'm all ready to learn."

_Not like you've got a choice. It's either every hillbilly's wet dream or a slow death in an interrogation cell. It was your call, you made it, now suck it up._

"You have no idea how long it's been since anyone said that," Nate grinned. "My boy just tells me to shut up these days. You got any kids?"

"Yeah, boy and a girl," Aiden said, let his face light up a little only to replace it with another accidental scowl. "But… I don't think they'll be visiting. They take after their mother, if you know what I mean."

Nate seemed less sympathetic than before when he said, "It's not good to lose track of family like that."

Aiden just shrugged as he turned away. "No, I guess not," he muttered and left it hanging in the air as he stalked back to the box. He dropped his hand in and pulled something out that intrigued him because it felt smooth, not like the rest of the computer entails. An old, dark metallic smartphone, barely used without even a crack on the screen. He needed a moment to place it and when he did, he froze caught between the urge of throwing it in the air and puncture it with all the bullets remaining in his gun and the desire to hide it even from Nate.

"What's up?" Nate asked, tore him from the moment and Aiden glanced up, plastered a smile back on his face. He shrugged again and slid the phone into his pocket.

"Nothing," Aiden said. "Hey, if you got an hour to kill, I could use someone, well, less predictable?"

Nate eyed the box. "This stuff looks pricey, you sure you want to shoot it up?"

"Definitely," Aiden said, baring his teeth.

Nate frowned a little, but reached in the box and pulled something out. "Do you want a count?"

"No, not one for the easy way."

"Okay," Nate grinne and threw the piece away from him with all his might, giving Aiden barely enough name to bring the gun back up. The shot barked loudly, the recoil climbing up the bones of his arm, but the bullet ripped the small shard from the sky.

* * *

**[Audio Log: 11/7/2026, 3:47 am]**

It's strange, I've always thought of the countryside to be quiet, but it really isn't. There's always something, snap of a twig, some animal digging through leaves, some rocks coming loose. I've set up an alarm a little down the road, don't want any surprises, but some animal keeps tripping it.

It'd be easier if I could just use Profiler, no stupid fox is going to trip it, but I can't trust the software. I need to write it from scratch. I don't know… programming a filter that's foolproof enough I'd trust my life to it… that's gonna take some work. Don't have anything better to do anyway.

For now, I'll settle for being woken up at random hours because of a hare. Better than waking up with a gun barrel in your face.

[Audio Log: 11/7/2026, 4:12 am]

The cabin still smells of roast.

Hunting is harder than I expected. I thought, it can't be harder than people. People are smart, most of the time. They think ahead, plan, they try to trick you, manipulate you, game doesn't do that. But it's got _sensational _hearing and sense of smell.

At least deer don't shoot back.

* * *

**[Audio Log: 01/01/2027, 0:21 am]**

Happy new year.

… fuck this.

* * *

_End of _Quaint Old World: Dissembled_

* * *

**References:**

'Bevan Smith' has the same meaning as 'Takeshi Kovacs' (by Richard K. Morgan)

'Gallows Water' is a town in _The Steel Remains_ by Richard K. Morgan, because I'll never tire of name-dropping him

in the _Fall Revolution_ novels by Ken MacLeod 'Dissembler' is the name of an OS

* * *

**Author's Note: **So here's the thing... I'm utterly determined to be last man standing in this fandom, not matter what. I feel like I owe it to this _fucking brilliant character _to do it, simply because of the adversity. At the same time, I'm also really burned out, out of ideas, out of motivation, out of... fire. This story has been sitting on my harddrive for some time now. It's not _good. _But it's also not _bad enough _not to include. Gonna get that mojo back eventually, just you wait.


	52. Femme Fatale - Part 1

**Warning:** Brachial stuns are no joke, don't try this at home, kids. This thing is the Vulcan nerve pinch.

**Author's Note:** I re-read Dark Clouds and realised I needed to do something with the Quinns and the Club. Lucky's mentioned to have several sons so... I'm deciding he has two, because I'm not creative enough to come up with enough plot for more.

* * *

[summary: it's time for the chicago south club to go down for good.]

[this takes place in 2018]

**_Femme Fatale - Part 1**

* * *

The slaughterhouse sprawled around them, eerily silent after the gunshots had died, darkened corridors lit only by faint white emergency lights connecting large, empty halls with each other. They'd been cleaned, of course, but it was too easy to imagine the subtle stench of gallons of fresh blood running away through the grills in the floor. They snapped at her heels as she ran over them, treacherously hidden from sight.

The only sound were their footsteps and fast breathing. She'd shook Iain's hand from her arm after he'd used his hold to propel her through the door. It was easier to run without being so close and bumping into each other.

She'd brought four bodyguards and Iain to the meet, a sufficient show of strength to back up negotiations without seeming to overcompensate. It wasn't good enough for a fight, though. One of her bodyguards had been taken out before everything even began, when the smart-watch on his wrist exploded. The force hadn't been able to sever his hand completely, but it had still ripped and burned his flesh to the bone, rendering him useless for the fight that followed and leaving him permanently maimed even if he survived.

Blood had sprayed into her face only a moment later, where a bullet had punched through another man's neck while they all still stood there dumbfounded. She'd never known Iain had reflexes like that, reacting faster than any of them, she guessed he'd saved her life, though she wasn't so confident he'd get to take it home.

She didn't usually conduct her business meetings in places like this. She preferred the villas and lofts owned by the family, the luxury spas and hotels. Not halfway dismantled slaughterhouses of a recently bankrupted company.

They didn't have the same hold over Blume they used to, not after all of Lucky's precious secrets were spilled all over the internet for everyone to see, but they still had means. _People _worked at Blume, and people had vices and weaknesses. All you needed was to find out what they wanted or dreaded most, then offer or threaten it in the right tone of voice.

This deal, however, had been difficult to resist and demanded a delicate touch. Her facts _had _been sound, she knew as much, she was no beginner, so she could only conclude the vigilante hadn't engineered all of it from scratch, he had probably just pounced on it at some later date. It was hard to figure out what his limits were, but she supposed he'd sign her assessment of people and how to use them. If it was true for Blume employees, it was equally true for Chicago South Club members, no matter how carefully they were selected.

The drivers were with the cars, but she had no illusions about their ability to help her. She needed to get away from this place and perhaps that was the only good thing about the remoteness. Pearce had never seemed to acquire many allies, perhaps his personality didn't agree with them, he was alone to do the hunting and the slaughterhouse was large and dark…

Iain had his gun out, but he was her secretary and though he was in good shape, but she doubted he could protect her any better than she could protect herself. Which, given the vigilante's track record wasn't going to mean much on either count.

She herself had a gun in its holster under her arm, a small revolver that suited her more than she knew how to use it. She'd never had much of a talent for it, but it made a good enough image for the wife of the current head of the Quinn family.

"Through here!" Iain shouted and ran through a metal double door that swung sluggishly open. The room beyond was large, it's corners lost in the dark. Only a handful of lights somewhere above, giving only a vague indication of its dimensions. Large meat hook caught the light dully, all lined up above a conveyer belt. Now there was an even better image, she thought, the vigilante gutted and left to bleed out, begging for his life if the pain hadn't left him too broken to even speak.

Perhaps she indulged in that violent fantasy for a split second too long or perhaps it made no difference. She caught the movement on the left, something more solidly black than the surrounding, but she had no time to even open her mouth to shout a warning. Pearce melted from the shadows and even that instant was enough to drive home just how much taller and bigger he was than Iain. And he was faster, too, silently and letting the darkness work for him. The element of surprise and the utter absence of hesitation. Iain barely managed to snap around and bring his gun up before Pearce was on him. There were no weapons in Pearce's hands, he simply slapped the gun the side and stepped in close to Iain, dropped his other arm down on the nape of his neck so hard, even she — doomed to do nothing but watch — thought she felt the force of it. Iain collapsed with a thin sound of pain escaping him.

Perhaps she should have used the time she'd been given, rather than admire the vigilante's apparent skill she should have drawn back more than just a step and ran, or drawn her own gun, or both. There had been an opening when the vigilante was focussed on Iain and at this distance, she doubted she'd have missed.

It never mattered, because Pearce didn't even wait before Iain had gone still on the floor before he whipped around. A quick, long-legged step brought him within reach of her and he caught her wrist before her fingers had even settled properly on the gun. She felt the leather of his gloves on her and the steely strength of his grip. He pushed her back until her back hit the wall and then snapped her captured hand back into the tiles, so hard a pained yelp escaped her and her fingers opened of their own, letting the gun clatter uselessly to the ground.

She kicked out with her legs, anything to destablise him, but she could bring enough force to bear, felt her heel slip past his leg without even making him shudder. She flailed her free arm around, aimed a balled fist for the side of his face only to have him deflect the blow easily. She yanked her knee up, but all it did was ruin her own balance and he spun her around with it and her face and body hit the tiles, driving the breath from her.

Snarling, she blindly reached behind her, clawing at whatever she could grip. She was perfectly fine with ripping off an ear if she could get a hold…

"Stop," he hissed close by her ear, voice slightly muffled. "Or I'll hurt you."

"Do your worst!" she snarled and struggled harder, though he didn't even flinch. The pain in her arm spiked sharply, overextended and for a moment she thought he'd simply snap it off. The wall in her face was unrelenting and Pearce's solid body behind her wasn't much better. She snarled again but then forced her body to go still. As satisfying as violence was, she didn't like to be on the receiving end. If he'd wanted her dead, he wouldn't have to just hold her like this, after all. And if he _didn't _want her dead, she had something else he wanted.

Sensing her compliance, Pearce eased up just enough so the pain receded to a dull threat. He caught her other hand and gathered both her wrists over her back, used his free hand to slip down her side, pushed away the edge of her blazer, his finger tips skimmed the edge of her breast as he passed over the empty gun holster, then down over her hips, dipped briefly between the junction of her thighs. He shifted his grip to his other hand, patted her down again.

She hissed a winded curse at him over the forced intimacy of his touch. If he'd done his homework, he'd know she had no other weapons. She didn't dare resume her struggles, however, in case he remembered to make good on his earlier threat and it didn't seem worth it. At least, his touch was too efficiently impersonal to serve any form of private gratification.

"I have an offer for you," he asked calmly. "You gonna listen?"

She snorted, but then took a deep breath and said, "What choice do I have? Yes, I'll listen."

Pearce hesitated for a moment longer than she had expected, she wasn't sure what he'd read in her tone other than weary exasperation, but perhaps he just was a paranoid bastard. In a way, if he weren't, the Club or the cops or any of the dozen other enemies he'd made would have dismembered him ages ago. An unexpected wave of relief flooded her when finally let go entirely and stepped back from her, she heard the quiet footsteps, a harsher scrape of metal on the floor, then another. He had kicked both dropped guns away in the darkness somewhere.

She turned around slowly, dropped her arms, winced at the burning in her strained muscles. Pearce remained a black presence against the more diffuse dark of the room. Sometimes an occasional snatch of hard white light glinted off the meat hooks, distracting her attention.

She let her gaze trail past him to Iain's prone body.

"Is he dead?" she asked and forced herself to sound as neutral as she could.

Pearce turned his head to glance down, then took a step to the side so he could poke him with the tip of his boot. Iain groaned and tried to roll away, but seemed to lack the coordination or presence of mind to do anything else.

She took her gaze away from him and back to Pearce. He'd put both hands into the pockets of his coat, no visible signs of weapons on him and in truth, he seemed insufferably relaxed, taking his time before he spoke again.

"You were hard to figure out," he said conversationally. "I couldn't figure out why the Club wasn't going down. Niall didn't have it and Kenneth certainly doesn't. He's a trust fund kid, no notable skill, no leadership qualities. I wasted a lot of time looking into him."

She caught herself clenching her teeth and stopped, staring into the darkness where his eyes would be, wondering if he'd be more readable in bright daylight, when his expression was laid bare.

He'd paused, watched her and she felt the scrutiny and let it push against her for a moment longer.

"Oh, you want me to _say _something, I thought I was just supposed to listen."

Pearce tilted his head a little in the gesture of a vaguely amused predator. "I got an offer," he said then. "I won't let the Chicago South Club return to old glories, not on my watch. But you know better than I the structure you built on, that's hard to take out all at once. I can kill someone, or get them in jail, or ruin their business. Bad for you, risky for me, but nothing changes. But you? You know everything about the Club. In a few minutes, the cops will show up, a weapons' deal gone bad. You didn't think I'd let you sell weapons to a terrorist cell, did you?"

"I think you're stretching yourself thin," she remarked, matching his casual tone, if his poise was out of her league for now.

He made a sound that could almost have been the beginning of a laugh, too short and too dry to be sure of it.

"I made sure the right cops get to handle your case. You tell them everything, you testify in court and the Club gets dismantled. You get off easy and go into witness protection."

She shook her head, "You're mad," she said and it was her turn to laugh at the absurdity of it.

He shrugged. "Or," he said in the same calm tone. "You take the fall for the Club. I know you got your deals with the DA's office, I know you think you'll get away with a slap on the wrist, but you won't. I'll spill everything I have on you, a whole year's worth of large-scale organised crime. You know what happens when that hits the net?"

"They'll give me my very own movie deal?"

This time, he did laugh, though it was still short and abrasive. "Public pressure will be massive. Acquitting you would be career suicide."

The humour had been fleeting from the start and she didn't much feel like laughing. She didn't think he'd be swaying so easily, bonding with her over a few clever exchanges. In truth, she felt her mood darken as his plan slowly sank in.

"That's the offer?" she asked. "Sell out the Club or go to jail?"

"Jail, yeah, well," he said thoughtfully. "Do you expect to enjoy it there? With your Club connection, could be a walk in the park."

He shrugged and she saw him turn his head, look down at Iain again. "Of course, you may be the de-facto leader of the Club, you're stilling running the show under your husband's name, even if he's just a figurehead. All he needs to do is kick you out."

She had a witty remark for that, but she already knew where he was going.

"And he'll kick you out if you damage his reputation. By, say, cheating on him with your secretary."

He paused, looked back at her and shrugged again. "Secrets," he said disdainfully. "Better not have them."

"What about yours? What dirty secrets are _you _hiding?" she demanded as icy anger pushed up her throat. "I _bet _they'll break you. It's just a question of time until someone does." She bared her teeth. "I'd _love _to be that person."

But he knew she had nothing, her play was improvised and he'd watched for weeks or months or whatever long it took him to set all of this up. His shadow was visibly unimpressed by her threat, he only tilted his head a little more, waiting and not saying anything more.

She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him.

"So you think I'll just roll over and do what you tell me to?" she snapped. "You think I'm that weak?"

"No, I think you're that smart."

She laughed in his face.

"You're Heather Quinn, born Heather Juliet Mullen," Pearce said in the same casual tone he'd started using when he was done threatening her. "Bridgeport youth, high school dropout, some minor infractions with drugs and prostitution. I took you for Kenneth Quinn's trophy wife at first."

She narrowed her eyes at him and said nothing. That was the image she'd painstakingly created and maintained, especially since Niall died. Safer for her, better for Kenneth and the Club. Everybody wins.

"You aren't a Quinn, not by birth anyway. Don't give me any bullshit about loyalty, you used Kenneth and you used the Club. It's time to walk away while you can."

"Shouldn't you want to kill _me_, if the Club's mine?" she mocked.

"Who says I don't?" he asked back and it didn't just sound like a line he'd recite, but what made it truly frightening was the lack of passion in his voice, as if death was nothing. If he had wanted her dead, of course they wouldn't be having this conversation and she'd grudgingly admit his assessment of her wasn't all wrong. She understood the nature of the threat he was making well enough. If she didn't do what he wanted, he would make sure she went to prison and he had the means to make her life a living hell there. It'd be messy, his manipulations facing off against the strings the Club could pull for her — or those loyal to her at any rate. She'd be in the middle of it. If he played it right, he could drive a wedge in Club politics and seriously hurt them, even if she refused his plan.

"I want the Club destroyed," Pearce added. "Think fast, the cops will be here any minute."

"What happens then?" she demanded. "You destroy the Club and it's free ponies for everyone? Somebody else will just take our place. You want the Russian mafia back in Chicago? Is that better? So what's the point?"

He tilted his head to the side a little and an errant sprinkle of light seemed to catch his eyes for an instant before he shifted away again.

"Not your concern. Make up your mind."

In the silence that followed, she heard the distant sound of police sirens, cutting through her thoughts. She looked away from Pearce and into the darkness, became aware again of the disgusting taste of metal in her mouth from the blood.

On the ground, Iain groaned and rolled on his stomach, tried to pull himself up to his hands and knees. She didn't know how much of the conversation he'd heard, but she knew she could trust him.

Still fixed on where Pearce's face was, she knew he'd set his trap well. He'd got her alone, given her no time to think things through so she could discover whatever loopholes he'd been unable to patch. She needed _time, _work something out to get out of this, but she needed him to believe her.

"It's not going to work," she pointed out, stabbed an accusing finger at him. "Come on, everyone I can sell to the cops, you already know who they are. Don't you? You know everything. You could just burn them out."

He grunted. "Like I said, it's not so easy. It's a power structure keeping the Club going. It's hundreds of people in key positions. I take one down, another takes his place. I take _ten _down, it's the same bullshit. But you and the cops… you take them all down, one stroke. I can cleanup whoever gets away. It'll be a purge."

"You _are _mad," she said again. "You know that, don't you?"

"That's not an answer."

"I could just keep you here talking," she said, just to be spiteful. "Cops show up and it's the end of you."

He snorted and didn't answer, but the sirens were fairly close by now, one or two streets away at most. They'd need a little time to get a good grasp on the place's layout, they'd move slow, too, depending on what report Pearce had fed them.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, took a few steps. Opened her eyes again and looked at him.

"If I do this, the Club will come for me. They have more cops on their payroll than you think, trust me on this." She pointed at him again. "You need to protect me, before, during and after the trial. You. It's your responsibility and it's my fucking life."

She saw him pause, but then nod his head, he still sounded amused. "You think I was planning to let you out of my sight?"

"Not good enough," she said, took a step forward, then another until she was close enough to touch him if she reached out. She saw a faint glint where his eyes were, the line where his mask rested on the bridge of his nose.

"I want your promise. I want you to promise me you'll protect me," a tiny shiver came into her voice and she swallowed it down immediately.

"You got it," he said and he still sounded casual about it, he'd dropped that pretence of humour he'd used before.

She took another breath, felt it shake at the back of her throat as she exhaled.

"All right, I'll do it," she forced out. "But it's all on you."

"Good," he said. "Come 'here."

She didn't have time to react, because he reached out and gripped her again, dragged her along to the other side of the door where several pipes came out of the wall only to vanish into the floor. He pulled her arms forward so they were aligned with the pipe, then wrapped a zip tie around both, pulled tight until she felt the plastic bite into her skin.

"Asshole," she snarled as she pulled experimentally on the pipe, but found that there was no give at all.

He chuckled and stalked over to where Iain was still struggling to get back to his feet. Pearce reached out and got a hold of his arm, yanked him up.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

"He's useless to me if he gets locked up," Pearce pointed out. "He's insurance, remember?"

She clamped her teeth closed and said nothing, watched as Pearce dragged Iain with him through the double doors they'd come through before. The doors swung back and forth in their wake, but she heard nothing else. The sirens had stopped moving and she guessed they were parked outside now, at least four of them, by the sound of them. Not enough cops to close the place down quickly, more than enough time for Pearce to slip away undetected.

Cursing, she pulled her bound hands again and hissed at the pain and futility of it, stamped her foot when the pipe and the zip ties held. No doubt she could work herself free eventually, but not before the cops found her.

* * *

Iain huddled miserably in the passenger seat. Sometimes, he'd bring his arm up and slide it along his neck, but didn't seem to dare put any pressure in it. He hadn't put up much of a fight and it rankled, even if he'd known to expect it. The chase through the dark slaughterhouse had pumped adrenaline through his system, but it seemed a thin layer of protection against the cold, hard truth he was faced with.

"That wasn't necessary," he muttered. "I still feel weird."

Pearce didn't even glance at him. He hadn't pulled the mask from his face and the shadow from his cap covered his eyes, keeping him hidden even against the brightness of the city lights outside.

"You were going to shoot me," Pearce said.

Iain frowned. "You know I aim for shit."

"I don't believe in luck," Pearce said, unimpressed and in a tone of voice that put an end to this part of the discussion. Iain had enough sense to shut up about it. He dropped his hand away from his neck and sighed.

"I'm so fucked," he muttered.

Pearce chuckled a little, not mockingly but Iain still didn't appreciate it. He send him a hard stare, though all he saw of Pearce's face in profile was dark against dark, impenetrable.

"If you must sleep with the boss, don't do it in front of a cam, you never know who's watching."

"No, actually," Iain said a little louder. "I'm learning that some creep is _always_ watching. I think in the end doesn't matter who. If it's you, or Blume or DedSec." He snorted and added, "And where's _no _camera anyway?"

He squared his shoulders into the seat and sat up a little straighter as he collected himself. "Can't believe you blackmailed her with the same thing."

Pearce glanced at him, but still said nothing, letting the silence drop in the car like a coffin lid.

After a while, Iain asked, "What happens next?"

"You go home," Pearce said simply.

"What do I tell the Club?"

"The truth, obviously. Terrorists didn't show up, but I did and killed everyone, didn't finish you. You saw the cops arrive and ran. You don't know what happened to Heather, they'll figure it out soon enough."

"She wasn't joking, you know," Iain said. "Kenneth Quinn… he's not the pushover you think."

Pearce took a finger from the wheel, aimed it vaguely at Iain. "_You_ said Heather was the once in charge. I found nothing that contradicts it. You gave her to me, don't forget that."

Iain rubbed his face with a hand, shook his head again like he was trying to get rid of unwanted thoughts. "I gave you nothing," Iain muttered. "Nothing you didn't take."

"Iain…" Pearce began, somewhat softer than before. "Don't worry, I stand by our deal. I stand by the promise I made her. But you've _got_ to trust me. Heather plays ball, she'll get through it. And if you don't fuck up your act with the Club, they have no reason to distrust you."

"And the witness protection? I have nothing to offer, I won't make it, so when they move her away…"

"Come on, Iain, you want to ride into the sunset with Heather? I'll make it happen."

"I heard that database is hard to crack…" Iain started.

"I _heard _I'm kind of good at this. Relax. Seriously."

Iain looked at Pearce again and clenched his lips together in a failed smile. "Not like I got a choice."

Pearce didn't answer, but tilted his head a little in agreement.

They drove for a while in silence until Pearce took the car from the busy street and around narrower and emptier corners until he parked behind a dark-grey cube of a building with an unhappy, flickering 'motel' sign shedding sickly light.

"That's your stop," Pearce said and Iain shook himself awake.

"Where are we?"

"South end of the Loop, looks worse than it is. ctOS blind spot, at least this week. They're upgrading the hardware. You're good the entire block."

Iain caught himself frowning before he realised what had changed to cause it. Pearce had pulled down the mask and muffling was gone from his rough voice, though it served only to make him seem less forgiving.

Iain climbed from the car and was hit unexpectedly by the damp cold, a slow stirring of uncomfortable air all around him. He heard the busy streets not far away and couldn't help but glance up to seek out the ctOS cameras in the dark above.

"You'll call?" Iain asked, put a hand on the open door and leaned down to catch a glimpse of Pearce.

"If there's something I need, sure," Pearce said.

"About Heather," Iain clarified. "She's important to me."

Pearce had already drawn back and Iain got the impression Pearce would drive off even if he didn't let go of the car. They'd been in contact for over half a year and though Iain didn't exactly like his blackmailer, Pearce wasn't as difficult as he'd expected. Iain thought it must be something like Stockholm's, but Pearce _had _listened to him about Heather and Kenneth Quinn and the Club. He didn't seem like someone who'd fuck them over just because he could. That _had _to count for something.

"I get it," Pearce said with just a hint of impatience. "But contact is risky. I'll let you know what you need to know."

Iain flexed his hand on the car, but finally relented and stepped back, slammed the door shut and watched the car drive off. He was feeling cold to his bones, tired and sore, less from the beating and more from the emotional strain. At least, this whole thing had finally gone into the last round and he could hope for an ending.

* * *

_End of Femme Fatale - Part 1_

* * *

**More Notes: **Insert usual self-depreciating comment here. This is writing with writer's block, I'm tired of waiting for it to improve, but hey, it's Christmas and it's the thought that counts, right?


	53. Femme Fatale - Part 2

**Author's Note: **It doesn't quite look like it, but I actually managed to meet my own deadline for this chapter (three days ago) but proofreading revealed that I practically needed to rewrite most of it. What have I got myself into?

**Recurring character:** Vincent Fisher has appeared in Loose Ends before. Mia Perez has appeared in Sucker's Game, but this takes place before she was contacted by Cox, in case you're worrying about that.

* * *

**_Femme Fatale - Part 2**

* * *

Mia Perez stood for a moment on the overgrown concrete of the backyard. A narrow street ran along the back of the houses here, just wide enough for a car, but it didn't see much traffic, judging by the vegetation creeping from the badly kept gardens outward. She glanced down on her phone to make sure she was in the right place, then shrugged. The house, like others in the row, was a four story building and a couple of decades old, judging by the style. From the front, they looked representable enough, but back here, it was all abandoned trash cans and trashed furniture.

An old car was propped up on bricks, its wheels long gone and the interior left to rot. Mia eyed it as she walked past and down a few steps to the semi-basement and into the shadow in front of the door. A massive cable went through the wall there, but before she could turn and look where the cable was coming from, the low metallic sound of the door unlocking pulled her attention back.

Pearce opened and gave her a quick smile.

"Come in," he said and stepped aside.

The short narrow hallway just beyond the door was mostly in darkness before it opened into a surprisingly spacious living room. At least, if this had still been a normal apartment, it would've been a living room. Pearce must have rented the place fully furnished, but had piled most of the furniture up against the back of the room, where Mia spotted several armchairs and couch tables as well as empty planters and sloppily packed and staked boxes. Most of the remaining tables and shelves now housed Pearce's computer set-up and the accumulated debris of someone who couldn't be bothered to keep house.

"Wow," Mia said, glancing over the equipment, following some of the larger cables where they followed the outline of the room, she spotted the cable coming through the wall by the door and connect to the rig in a mess of loose wires.

Behind her, Pearce locked the door and closed the metal gate he'd installed on the inside.

"Did you bring food?" Pearce asked and Mia held out the white plastic bag she held in one hand.

Pearce snatched it and put it on the desk, digging through the contents.

"How long have we known each other?" he asked.

"Two months and a couple of days," she said, not sure if she should be precise about it, but somewhat glad Pearce wasn't even watching her. He had dug into her plastic bag, retrieved a bag of fries and a double hamburger.

"You ready?" he asked and sat down on the table, pulled a leg up on his chair to balance the hamburger's box and take a hearty bite.

"Ready?" Mia repeated. "Ready for what?"

Burger in one hand, Pearce reached behind himself with the other and pulled up a tablet, he tapped on it and the room behind Mia brightened.

Confused, she didn't react immediately. Pearce reached out, gripped her arm and tugged her a step aside.

The projector she'd blocked threw its image on the wall. Pictures of people, some mugshots, others candids taken clearly without the people knowing about them. There were shots from the news or social media. It was too much to take it all in, so Mia only registered only random elements. A woman with bleached-blonde hair, a young man with a bright red tattoo that made him look like his throat had been slashed, a man with a large rifle standing over a killed deer.

"What…?"

"You're looking at the Chicago South Club," Pearce said around the burger.

Mia followed some of the connections with her eyes, recognised the man in the designer clothes on top of the projection as Kenneth Quinn. He didn't look like a mobster, more like a hipster if anything, lavishing on some penthouse terrace with a view of both the lake and the city behind him.

"I still don't have everything," Pearce said. "But it's going to be enough." He tabbed on the tablet. "Eight days, Heather Quinn, Kenneth's wife, was arrested. She's been in a safe-house, being debriefed by the EADA, Timothy Ramsey, and his team. He's an expert on organised crime, no dirty secrets I could find on him. He's a good man for the job."

"No dirty secrets," Mia snorted.

"He smokes weed on weekends," Pearce said without missing a beat. "But he's not corrupt and that's what matters. Heather's going to give him… something like this," Pearce pointed at the projection. "Probably more detailed."

He took another bite while he zoomed in on the picture of an attractive young woman with bright blue eyes and an artificial smile.

"You got the mob boss's wife to sell him out?" Mia asked.

"Better," Pearce said, chuckled a little. "Kenneth and Heather have a different arrangement. He's just a figurehead, but he seems okay with that. He gets the prestige and the respect. She gets to give the orders and make sure nothing goes wrong. Keeps the traditionalists in the Club happy and the money coming in. They've rebuilt significantly since Niall's death. Made peace with the Militia, got back with the Viceroys. They are even rebuilding some of their human trafficking operations. The Club had some bad blood with Blume, but some of the Club-owned IT startups are working fine with Blume."

He tabbed through the information as he spoke. "Taking the Club apart is something I can't do alone, but Heather Quinn can. These people are the heads that need to be chopped off, but there's a whole system backing them. Heather's testimony is one of the few that can take it all apart, because she knows almost everything."

Interspersed by taking bites off the burger, Pearce scrolled through several people's mugshots and candids.

He said, "John Heng has become the Quinn's business manager. Now he's interesting because in college he was in the same fraternity as Joseph DeMarco and Peter Madison."

"DeMarco's dead," Mia said. "But I know Madison." She couldn't quite place him, though.

Pearce smirked a little. "He's CIO of Kessler Co., a local weapons manufacturer and dealer." He pulled up a picture of a muscular man in an expensive suit. "Madison is friends with Joe Walker, who is a leader in the Pawnee Militia. He's a special forces veteran, but I haven't gotten to his files yet. Which brings us to Carl Herrick."

Herrick turned out to be the man Mia had spotted earlier, with the slashed-throat-tattoo.

"Also special forces, also no accessible files. Herrick is twenty years younger than Walker, I don't know if they knew each other," Pearce said, growled a little. "The military angle isn't paying off yet. I have someone looking into it, but I'm not sure much will come of it."

He paused and seemed to consider Herrick. "His role isn't clear. He's definitely the muscle and he's the one keeping the gangs in line. He doesn't have a lot of connections within or outside the Club, he's more of a lone wolf, makes him dangerous."

"You think you couldn't take him?" Mia asked, it was a joke but Pearce merely nodded.

"I'd shoot him in the head from half a mile away," he said. "That's the only way I'll take him."

Mia frowned, but didn't know how to comment, so she turned back to the problem.

"The Militia, maybe?" Mia offered. "Military types are attracted to them."

"Yeah, could be," Pearce said, but didn't sound convinced. "But the Militia is a problem I'm getting to." He paused, then picked up the thread again. "Arthur Campbell has been with Lucky for over thirty years. He's a lawyer, a good one, got a whole army of other good lawyers to roll out whenever a Club boss needs help."

Pearce changed the projection again, focussed on the woman with the bleached hair Mia had spotted before. The zoomed-in picture revealed her to be much older Mia had thought, at least in her fifties and looking slender and elegant.

Pearce continued, "This is Victoria Vanna, not her real name. Jumped into the breach after the trafficking ring blew up, kept what was left from falling apart. She used to be close to both Lucky and Niall, but the relationship to Heather seems a bit cold. Vanna's the 'meat manager' in the Club. Dancers, strippers, hookers, escorts, male or female, she finds them. She's also running the Miroire modelling agency. They got a pretty good reputation."

"Shit, I know someone who signed a contract with them," Mia said. "Do you think I should warn her?"

"No, Miroire is mostly a front, they treat their signed models well, it's the informal employees you should worry about."

"Meat manager," Mia muttered to herself and pulled a grimace, but Pearce only shrugged. He scrunched up the now empty burger box and set it aside, he reached into the bag to retrieve a handful of fries.

"Her term," he said. "The Club's human trafficking operation went up in flames a few years ago, but it's been growing again. There's always some sick fuck willing to buy a human being, so there's a market. The operations are run mostly out of The Qube, a semi-legit nightclub in Mad Mile. The place is managed by Teddy Mahoney, himself the son of an old family friend and Lucky's personal doctor. His right hand is this guy: Vincent Fisher. He used to run a few underground brothels under Quinn, fell out with the Club and went freelance for a while. I put him behind bars a few years ago, but he's out on parole and diving right back in. Fisher's a sadist, if no one else's got to go, he does."

He looked rather harmless to Mia's eyes, not unattractive at first glance. She looked back at Pearce again, searching for clues to what he was thinking, but his face had turned to stone. He shook himself free of his own thought, however dark they might have been.

"And then we have Gerry Mackey. Used to be a small scale con man, habitual gambler, calls himself a financial advisor, but since the fallout after Niall's death, Mackey's in charge of virtually all the Club's finances."

"I…" Mia started when Pearce fell silent. "I'm not sure I got all of that."

A slight smile broke through the mask of Pearce's face when he met her gaze. "Don't worry."

He lifted the tablet he'd been using. "It's all here. I have to take care of something, and I want you here, keeping an eye on things. I don't expect any trouble, but this setup isn't portable."

He turned off the projection and put the tablet down, fished a handful of fries from the bag. "If you get bored, read up on it. The tablet doesn't go online. In fact, it's best if you don't mess with any network settings."

"Even to improve them?" Mia asked with a chuckle.

"I'm open to suggestions," he said doubtfully. He pointed with a fry at the thick cable Mia had noticed earlier. "A ctOS centre is just a street away and that's my link. I have no surveillance in the safe-house where Heather is, they do regular sweeps and I don't want to scare them, _but _they back up everything to the server farm up in Pawnee. In other words, we get regular updates too."

"Blume should know about it," Mia said. "The moment you touched the cable."

"Yeah," Pearce said. "Currently the alert is being suppressed, but sometime someone will look at the logs and see what's going on. I got a backup ready to go when that happens, don't worry."

He found some bunched up paper napkins at the bottom of the bag and wiped his hands.

"Questions?" he asked.

"You're actually trusting me with… all of this?"

"I'm actually trusting you with all of this," Pearce said earnestly. He angled his head as he added, "That's bathroom, that's kitchen, don't touch the beer while you're working."

He pushed himself off the table and strode across the room. "I got to get changed," he said and vanished through a third door.

Left alone for the moment, Mia took the chance to look around the place again. She'd seen some of Pearce's hideouts before, but this was by far the most sophisticated setup she'd seen. Judging from just the pieces she could see at a glance, it was also worth a fortune in hardware alone and who knew what all the collected information was going to be worth. Pearce was going to war. And apparently he thought she was good enough to take along.

She caught sight of herself mirrored in some of the darkened screens along the back and realised she was grinning like an idiot at the realisation.

Taking a deep breath and walked over to the chair and sat down slowly, rolled it to the desk and let her hand hovered reverently over the keyboard.

"Don't mess it up, kid," Pearce said from the bedroom doorway.

"No pressure, eh?" she grimaced and Pearce chuckled. He had changed into a dark hoodie and foregone his usual leather coat in favour of a shorter jacket. It didn't hide the gun-holster nearly as well, but by the way he'd bulked up slightly, it was doing a better job about the bulletproof vest he was wearing.

"Something goes wrong, you call," Pearce said. On the way to the door, he picked up two bags from the floor and slung them both over his shoulder.

"Yeah, I will," she said, thought about it and added, "How do I know what's supposed to happen and what isn't?"

"Nothing should happen," Pearce said. "Heather had a headache, Ramsey went home an hour ago and she's in her safe-house. There's a schedule for her protective detail, including their names. There are no cameras inside, but you can spot them coming and going. It's labelled in the system, you'll find it. Anything weird, you keep it in sight and you call me ASAP."

"I can do that," Mia said.

"I know," Pearce said seriously. "I should be back in a few hours."

He used his phone to unlock the door and left.

* * *

An hour later, Pearce sat in his parked car at the far end of the large, sprawling car-park between several industrial plants. The port wasn't far and if Pearce had been looking up instead of down on his phone, he could have seen its lights hang above the horizon in the twilight gloom of late afternoon.

The ctOS cameras moved lazily on their poles above, but there were large gaps in their surveillance pattern. Pearce suspected some other hacker's work in it, but found no other trace of anyone else in the system. He considered adjusting the pattern, but eventually didn't. He didn't need the additional intel and it was better if his presence on the parking lot wasn't recorded at all.

He cycled through the camera feeds anyway and when he spotted the jeep turning into the car-park, he used the camera to zoom in and let Profiler check through the three men. Profiler spewed out the details, but his quick search turned up nothing he didn't already know or expect. All three had records, two of them hate-crime related and the third seemed to have just concocted a better story. In many ways, their social media was more damning, online they were honest about where they stood politically.

Pearce picked up three smartphone signals from the jeep. Two of them were decently protected, nothing he couldn't crack, but he wasn't sure he felt like expanding the energy, especially when the third had gone without patching for a while. He installed a backdoor, watched the status bar for a moment to be sure nothing threw an error, then pocketed the phone as he got out of the car.

A slow drizzle was falling, painting a treacherous glint across the cracked asphalt of the parking lot. Pearce pulled the hoodie up and narrowed his eyes against the unexpected sting.

At this moment, he was aware of nearly forty terrorist cells in Chicago. They spanned the whole spectrum, from far right to far left, religious, environmental, cyber-anarchist, black, white and any colour and ethnicity in between. He suspected there were more, the truly smart ones who never showed up on his radar because they never used a phone at all. He dealt with them the same way he was forced to deal with most threats he encountered, he prioritised. He couldn't monitor them all, or take them out. What he _could _do was make sure their existence became known. He uploaded their secrets to SystemLeaks, got them to DedSec, or other watch dog organisations, he used anonymous tip-lines and sometimes he got more involved and made sure the tips were taken seriously.

But Louis Walker and his cell had crossed his path at just the right time. Louis was Militia leader Joe Walker's son, but Louis had had fallen out with the Militia. They weren't radical enough for Louis' taste, they weren't doing enough. Louis didn't see himself as a criminal, in his mind he was a freedom fighter. He still kept in loose contact, but Pearce was fairly certain the Militia was unaware of what Louis did.

Louis parked the jeep a good distance away and got out with one of his comrades, while the other slipped forward to take the driver's seat.

Watching the two men approach, Pearce reached into his jacket for the small pack of cigarillos. He gave the sky a resigned glare, lit up and waited. If he'd left it to CPD, or even Blume's incomplete crime detection software, this group wouldn't be caught before they did some massive damage. Two birds with one stone, he'd enjoy taking them down.

"You got it?" Louis called when they stopped a few yards away. After their deal with Heather and the Club had fallen through, they'd been spooked and it had taken some manoeuvring on Pearce's part to make them willing to trust an unknown source.

Pearce nodded, "Sure," he said, but didn't move. "You got the money?"

Louis glared at Pearce. He was a tall man, remarkably muscled and clearly used to intimidate the people around him. Pearce had seen some of the man's fighting moves, though, and he wasn't worried.

After a moment, Louis clenched his teeth and made a sharp gesture with his head to his comrade. He held a small paper bag and at the gesture, he pulled it open, held it down so Pearce could see the rolled up bundles of money.

"Okay," Pearce said after a lengthy pause in which he'd peered into the bag. It'd be easy to underpay, but Louis wasn't dumb enough. You shortchanged your contacts in this field and you didn't get very far. He'd been good enough to negotiate with the mob boss herself, even if Pearce had pushed Iain to over-exaggerate the deal's importance to Heather.

Pearce stood up and walked around the car, picked the two bags from the backseat. When he straightened, Louis was standing right behind him, Pearce had seen him approach from the corners of his eyes and wasn't startled. He froze briefly, if only to signal to Louis he knew what was going on, then he stood up straight and tucked on the bags' straps. He took a particularly leisurely drag off the cigarillo and gave Louis a vaguely disinterested once-over, only to look past him. Pearce held his hand out and gestured with two fingers at the other man.

"Money," he said.

"Let me see," Louis demanded. He was close enough Pearce had to tilt his head a little to look into his eyes. Pearce shrugged, took a step back and jostled the bags forward, unzipped one of them and let Louis have a look.

"Now," Pearce said, let his voice drop because Louis being this close was beginning to irritate him and if he just killed him here and now, he'd waste a perfectly good setup.

_"Money," _he said sharply.

Louis seemed to think about it, but then relented, nodded and his comrade stepped forward. Pearce took the paper bag and simultaneously let the straps of the bags slip down his arm, he held them out to Louis, who took it and shouldered them.

Pearce took the cigarillo from his mouth and blew out a puff of smoke into the cold air. The two men were already turning to go, though Pearce could tell Louis wanted to say something else.

Pearce bent him a thin smile.

"Don't hurt yourselves, kids," he called after them.

Louis stopped, turned his head at him, waited until his gaze met Pearce's. Louis bared his teeth in a vicious grin, then turned and strode back to his jeep.

Pearce tossed the cigarillo away and waited until the jeep had left the parking lot before he climbed back into his car and checked his phone. He connected to Louis' phone and activated its GPS, send it to the car's centre-stack display.

He knew where Louis and his friends were based, but there was always a chance they had some additional bolt-hole he hadn't found out about. He had to follow them through the city for nearly an hour, partly because traffic was thick this late in the evening and partly because Louis was taking a roundabout route. It seemed an old-school thing to do, ctOS could easily track you on almost any route and if you went somewhere where ctOS _couldn't _follow you just attracted more attention.

Pearce was glad when Louis finally took the expected turns and made his way from the Wards through Parker Square, past May Stadium and into a more sparsely populated area. The car repair shop Louis used as headquarters had been closed years ago. It had been attached to a gas station, but Pearce had pulled the records and knew the underground tanks had been emptied, otherwise causing an explosion would've been much harder to calculate.

Pearce parked the car a little distance away from the shop and hacked his way through the local cameras until he had a good idea of the surrounding area and the two buildings of the shop itself. Three more men were hanging around the place and Profiler identified them all as members of Louis' group.

Pearce checked again while Louis parked the jeep and joined the others inside. Sometimes teenagers hung around on the edge of the premisses, some gang foot-soldiers being bored, but there was thankfully no one there this evening, no homeless, no hooker, no scurrying rats appeared on Pearce's camera feeds.

Inside, Louis had put the two bags on a workbench and began to slowly unpack them, talking loudly to the others about the deal and his surprisingly favourable opinion of the man who had sold them the bomb components and explosives. Louis thought he might be able to recruit him.

Pearce arched his eyebrows, unimpressed, and put him on mute. He cycled through the cameras one last time, went through the profiles and background checks on Louis' men again, but he didn't expect to find anything that'd change his mind and he was right. If there was scum, he was looking at it.

He dialled up the phones at the bottom of both bags, he'd installed them carefully, hooked them into the explosives in the bag to make sure everything engaged when he detonated. For a moment, the touch of his thumb was too gentle for even the sensitive touchscreen to register, a slow thoughtful motions just out of reach while Louis had no idea at all what was going to happen. Pearce stopped, then stroked his thumb over the screen, saw the small button light up.

The shop went up in a blue-white fireball, the explosion shook the ground in all direction, a small-scale earthquake. It blew out windows on the houses nearest it, crumpled some of the plaster from the more weathered walls and the shockwave flattened the chain-link fence and some of the shrubbery in the area.

Most of the cameras in the garage's immediate vicinity were unresponsive, but Pearce found one a little further down the street to get a good look at the burning mess he'd made. The shop was swallowed up by pitch-black smoke and billowing clouds of dust from the ruptured walls, making it hard to see the actual damage. The jeep had been propelled across the lot and punched into a row of parked cars there, from where he was, Pearce could just make out the wailing of a car alarm. From the black, licks of flames shot high into the frosty sky as the fire consumed with fuel it found.

* * *

"Pearce," Mia greeted him when he walked back into the hideout.

She'd certainly made herself comfortable while he'd been gone. The place smelt of fresh coffee and she was listening to loud music, the beat had already hit him outside the door and he'd heard her sing along badly before she'd stopped at his appearance. Mia reclined in his chair by the desk, one leg up on the table with the tablet in her lap. She had put up a news feed on one of the screens, reporting his terror intervention in Parker Square.

"Turn that down," he said. "There are people on the floor above us."

With his back to her, he couldn't see her expression, but she followed immediately and the music volume dropped to a more comfortable background noise. It became possible to hear the news over it, Pearce caught himself listening for a moment.

_[WKZ News]: An explosion shook Parker Square this afternoon when a house went up in flames and the fire department fought hard to keep the fire from spreading to neighbouring houses. With the fires barely doused, the CPD held a press conference and revealed that at least five men were found dead in the house, one of them has been identified as terror suspect Louis Walker, who has ties to a white supremacist group as well as the paramilitary organisation known as the Pawnee Militia. The police's preliminary investigations indicate that an attempt to build a bomb has spectacularly failed, resulting in the explosion. No others were harmed by the explosion or the fire. Watch the press conference in full, up on our website now. _

Mia took her foot down and sat up straight, gave the chair a shove to make it rotate. She watched him for a moment and the apparent interest he had in the news, but when he offered no explanation she didn't ask.

"I noticed something," she said instead, biting her lower lip in preoccupation.

"Let's hear it," Pearce said, looking away from the news.

"I looked through the information and I checked with the protocols of what Heather's giving Ramsey and…" she hesitated. "I don't know, I mean, it's early in the whole thing and I don't really get how it works, but… she's not giving him all the people you pointed out."

Pearce frowned. "Alright, show me."

He took off the jacket and shook out some wet snow before he tossed it in a corner. He leaned his hip into the desk while Mia switched on the projector, quick fingers flitting over the tablet.

"So far, Heather's provided damning information on these people, right? Campbell, Doctor Mahoney, Heng and Vanna."

"Yes," Pearce said, staring at the wall. "They're key."

"There're all Lucky's people, or Niall's."

Pearce gave her a long look. "It's only been a week," he said slowly, but it felt like a stale argument already. He looked away from Mia and back at the wall, going through the records he'd seen and read in that week. He caught himself clenching his teeth.

"Yes, but…" Mia hesitated again, tapped on the tablet. "But not a peep on Mackey, the money guy? Isn't that, like, an important thing?"

Mia gave him a searching look and when he said nothing, she switched the display again. "Nothing on Herrick and if he's in charge of the gangs…"

Her voice dropped a little and she shrugged, a little helplessly. "I mean, if she was just protecting her lover, that'd make sense…but, uhm, to me, it just looks like she's cleaning house."

"It does," Pearce agreed quietly.

"But it's only been a week," Mia repeated meekly.

Pearce shook his head, lips tightened to a thin line. He pushed himself from the table and reached past Mia and turned off the music completely. He gave her an irritable look and Mia scrambled from the chair and Pearce settled down. She hovered behind his right shoulder, still with the tablet in hand, unsure of what to do.

Pearce pulled out his phone, connected it to the rig and hit the dial button.

Only a few moments later, the connection was established. It'd show up as a secure connection from Ramsey's office.

"Hey there," Pearce said congenially. "It's Lloyd, I got some urgent question, boss told me to list them to our special guest so she can think about them until tomorrow, hand me over will you?"

_"Well, damn, it's late, she's already in bed." _

Pearce faked a laugh. "Wake her up, it's not negotiable. I don't get to sleep, she doesn't."

_"I hear you. Wait a sec." _

Mia suppressed snigger. In the pause, she glanced around and withdrew to the couch against the wall. She shoved Pearce's damp jacket aside to sit down.

_"What is it?" _

Pearce's voice dropped back into its wintery growl. He said, "We need to talk. Make something up and go to another room."

There was a short pause, clearly while Heather sorted out her thoughts. When she spoke again, it was already for the benefit of the cops there.

_"Now?" _she asked indignantly. _"That's a rather intimate topic." _

"Good," Pearce said. There was another pause while Heather left the room. When she spoke again, she nevertheless dropped her voice. She spoke rapidly, barely composed compared to the moment just before.

_"Thank god you called! What the fuck?" _she demanded. _"You said I'd be safe! But I know one of the men outside _right now _is on the Club payroll." _

"Ramsey hand-picked the members of his team, I vetted them," Pearce said. "They are all clean."

_"And I tell you, not this one. Yeah, Ramsey. Fuck Ramsey. You've got to get me out of here." _She stuttered into silence, sounded a little breathless. _"I don't know why they haven't moved yet, but I swear to you the Club knows where I am and it doesn't take a genius to figure out what I'm doing." _

"That's why we need to talk, actually," Pearce said. He felt Mia's gaze on him from behind, studying him.

_"Are you even listening?" _Heather snapped. _"What do you have if they kill me?" _

"Hmm," Pearce made and said nothing for a moment. "I'm wondering. Because it looks like you're playing another game."

_"I'm not playing anything!" _she snarled. _"It's just my life on the line, I'm not playing with that!" _

"You're very selective about the information you give up."

Heather was silent, but her shock came through the connection like a tangible wave. When she spoke again, she had forced some strained calm into her voice.

_"All right, you listen to me, you asshole. I've been doing exactly what you want from me, you haven't been keeping your end of the deal. The Club will kill me. And they will do it soon. I can't give Ramsey anything at all if I'm dead. What do I have to do to get it through to you?"_

Pearce said nothing. He looked up when a warning flashed on the screen in front of him. He watched it pensively, he knew how long he had until he needed to disconnect.

"Here's a new deal," he said. "Whatever it is you're doing, you stop. And I'll think about protecting you."

_"Are you serious?" _

"You don't get it. You think I need you, but you're just _convenient_. I have to hang up now. Talk with Ramsey tomorrow, give him everything. Start with Mackey and Herrick."

_"Fuck-"_

Pearce cut the connection before she could finish.

He stapled his fingers in front of his face, stared at the random excerpt of information currently displayed on the screen in front of him. All his work, _months _of painstaking information gathering and uncounted sleepless nights until he figured out how it all belonged together. The intricate pattern of corruption and shell corporations and tax-evasion trickery and all the clever spiders hidden in their corner of the web. Finding Iain had been a gift, using him to unravel the hierarchy around Kenneth and Heather Quinn had been so promising…

"Pearce?" Mia asked tentatively.

"Shit," he muttered.

He shook himself back into the present, looked at Mia for a moment and her vaguely worried expression. Feeling his attention, she fidgeted a little, saying, "So…uhm…"

He tapped his fingertips against his chin, going over everything again. Heather had always been a calculated risk, he'd suspected she would try to twist the situation in her favour somehow, but he'd hoped he hadn't left her enough room to do much.

Mia still hovered and he realised he needed to take care of her somehow. He squared his shoulders and leaned back in the chair, found a smile for her and said, "Good catch."

"Do you believe her?" Mia asked. "She sounded very spooked."

"I don't know," he said honestly.

"What happens now?"

He'd missed something. Something in the files, something more subtle than what he'd been looking for. Ramsey must have missed it, too and he was arguably more experienced than Pearce himself. If he couldn't Ramsey's team, then Heather might indeed be in danger. She was looking for an advantage, he couldn't blame her, he'd do it, too, in her place. He didn't need to let her have it, though. She was right, though, she was useless to him if the Club managed to take her out before Ramsey could take the prize home.

"For now, we keep going as planned," Pearce said finally as Mia's expectant silence forced itself into his awareness. "I'll go over Ramsey's team, again. If I can find the mole, I can cut them out."

"You need help?"

"Yeah, seems like a second set of eyes comes in useful."

* * *

**End of _Femme Fatale – Part 2**


	54. Femme Fatale - Part 3

**Author's Note: **There's a mention of T-Bone leaving Chicago which is there because I'm trying to forestall potential continuity problems.

As you can probably tell from my irregular updates, I'm struggling with this wholewriting thing these days. This story is going to be far too long, let me know if it gets boring, I almost deleted it instead of writing another part for it…

**On Tumblr: **I'm no longer putting up with that cesspool of idiocy, but I'm going to keep maintaining the chronology page there.

* * *

**_Femme Fatale – Part 3**

* * *

Ramsey's team consisted of over twenty people. All of them with friends, many with family, most with social media activity and a private life. All of them had digital footprints to follow, the trails branching off in all directions. A painstaking puzzle of hit'n'miss, of hacking into ctOS to follow these people through Chicago on the recordings of surveillance and traffic cams. It was sorting through emails and texts and forum entries, it was checking and re-checking browsing histories and medical records, dissecting them for clues.

It shouldn't have been so hard. Heather had quite clearly pointed to one of the two men who had been with her at the time, but both of them came back clean, or clean enough. No one had nothing to hide, Pearce had always known that. In many ways, such things had ceased to matter. Vices, no matter how public or hidden, they were only important if it made the people under their thumb malleable. If Pearce had been looking to turn one of Ramsey's team, he'd have found a dozen different ways to apply pressure and there was no reason to suspect the Club were unable to do the same. It wasn't the point. The point was, nothing in Chicago happened without some kind of digital imprint. They weren't looking for weaknesses to use against these people, they were looking for evidence that somebody else had already done it. And there was nothing, except a few calls to prepaid phones, some late-night hangouts in seedy bars, a stolen car once. Potentially suspicious, but equally likely to be completely innocuous. It didn't _help. _

There were many indications that some parts of the Club were _looking, _they even had sniffed out some of Ramsey's people and started prodding at them, but there was no indication any of them had already broken. For now, Ramsey's team was holding it together and if their most intimate records proved anything, then it was that not everyone always _would _be turned, even if their circumstances allowed for it. Not everyone was corrupt, not everyone sold out their principles to protect their vices. It was, perhaps, the only good thing to be revealed in the age of big data.

"Pearce?"

But if Ramsey's team wasn't the problem, where was the leak? Heather could've been mistaken, could've been frightened, could've been trying to play him…

"Pearce, hey, wake up."

Cold fingertips touched his shoulder, then gripped and shook him none too gently. He rolled to his back, squinted against the dull glare of the light falling through the door to make out Mia standing over him. She took her hand back.

"There's a blackout," she said. "Around the safe-house where Heather is."

He had been alternating with Mia, sleeping in shifts to keep an eye on Heather and Ramsey and simultaneously going through the data surrounding Ramsey's team. It was too much for two people, Pearce knew that, but he wasn't willing to trust too many people with this. T-Bone didn't need the heat it'd bring and Pearce wasn't even sure where he was since leaving Chicago. T-Bone would come if he called, but Pearce preferred not to drag him back.

"When?" he asked as he slipped to his feet.

"Just now," Mia said and pulled a face. She drew back into the living room. "Do you think I'd sit on that kind of thing?"

When he'd gone to lie down a few hours before, he'd only kicked off his boots and taken off his sweater. It didn't take long to layer the bulletproof vest and sweater back on. He strode back into the living room to retrieve his gun and baton.

He pushed a hand through his tousled hair and stepped up behind Mia, who had returned to the desk.

"No," he said a little belatedly. "'course not. Sorry."

"You'd better be," Mia muttered. She pulled up a map. "The whole area. I already checked, the system's trying to reboot, but it keeps being cancelled. I can't fix it from here, _Blume _can't fix it. Someone has to go there and do it directly."

"It's a hit," Pearce said and turned away to pick up his coat from the pile on the couch. Snarling, he added, "What did we miss?"

The chair creaked as Mia turned around to watch him, eyes going wide in realisation. "You are going out there? You have no idea what's going on!"

Pearce was already by the door, had already unlocked it, pushed the grate aside, but then he stopped, forced a deep breath through clenched teeth. He turned halfway back to her, facing her. He pointed with his finger.

"That's your job. Go through the recordings from right before the blackout. I want you to monitor CPD's communications, I want to know what they're up to. And there should've been chatter before, on the Grid or… _somewhere. _Find it."

"You'll need backup," Mia pointed out and from the way she'd slipped to the very edge of the chair, he could tell she was determined to go with him. She didn't have the training. She was good with a gun, better than she looked at hand-to-hand combat, but the thought of her tagging along just irritated him. She was right, he had no idea what he was walking into, he couldn't know if she could handle it.

"I'll have backup" he said. "But you stay right here, do what I told you."

She wanted to argue, he could tell, but thought better of it before she said something she'd regret. He wasn't sticking around to hear it anyway, hurried to the door and dipped out into the slush-dreary Chicago night.

In the car, he established a connection with Mia first, but unsurprisingly she hadn't been able to turn anything up in the minute since his departure.

The GPS announced it would take him nearly half an hour until her was at the safe-house. Whatever well-orchestrated hit was in progress, it would be long over by then and his entire plan a smoking ruin. He switched his traffic hacks to continuous and hit the gas. This way, all lights and bridges would open the way for him and speed limits weren't a concern.

He shifted his grip on the wheel and went for the phone, send a message, then dialled.

"Jordi? You anywhere near that address?"

_"Right now?" _Jordi always sounded like you caught him in a whirlpool with some barely legal hookers, a distinctive combination of laid-back, amused and annoyed. You had to admire his aplomb, though only when there was time for it.

"The Club's trying to assassinate Heather Quinn before she can testify against them. That's the address of her safe-house. There's a blackout there. I'll need fifteen minutes. Can you get there faster?"

Jordi was silent for a long time and there were no background noises to betray what he was doing. Eventually, he said, _"No, but I _can _get there in fifteen. I could speed it up if you shared your ctOS hacks with me." _

Pearce said nothing.

_"And let's not talk about that this could've been avoided if you'd shared them with me in the first place. Like a friend should. Pearce?" _Jordi continued. _"I'm just saying, you want it done, that's the way to go. It's your call." _

Pearce flexed his hand on the wheel, mouthed a silent curse, but then glanced down on his phone to access the hacks. Jordi had wanted them for a long time. There were enough black hat hackers around willing to sell on ctOS, of course. The system had been breached by dozens of hackers on all possible levels, but DedSec were jealously guarding their system hacks and only Pearce himself had T-Bone's expertise to draw on.

"Fine. Don't abuse them," he warned when he send them.

_"Me? What do you think of me?" _

"I hope you are already on the move," Pearce said darkly, refusing an answer.

_"Naturally." _

Pearce disconnected Jordi. He was in no mood to banter and Jordi didn't need to be told how to handle himself in a situation like the one they were heading into.

He took the Skyway to reach the Loop quickly, focused on the slowly thickening traffic, watching the city skyline come into view ahead of him. The streets were wet here, frosty sludge melted by the heat of the cars and the compressed warmth of the city itself. Treacherous grounds and he felt it in the way the car reacted, he was going too fast, any tiny hitch, any tiny mistake and he could lose control.

"Mia?" he asked after he'd checked they were still connected. He hadn't heard anything from her.

_"Nothing. I mean, nothing useful," _she announced. _"I looked at the cameras, it looks like the blackout was caused by an accident. Well, 'accident' with air-quotes and all. A tanker truck smashed into a building and took it out. Had a ctOS tower on top of it. Blume's trying to reroute the connections to power the area back up." _

"How long?"

_"No idea. Minutes? Blume's average on outages is ten point seven minutes, but this is a bit bigger than the usual problems." _

"What are the cops doing?"

_"Cops have redundant connections, but they still lost contact with two patrol cars. They were called to a shooting, right outside the safe-house," _Mia answered. _"More patrols are on the way, but their ETA is ten plus minutes, because of the chaos." _

Pearce himself had redundant connections. That way, if a part of the ctOS network went out, his phone would automatically switch to another carrier tower. It wasn't a service that was available to the general public. And the blackout would still have taken out everything that required a power connection and didn't have a generator of its own. No traffic cams, for one, he wouldn't be able to see as far or as much as he was used to.

"They know nothing?"

_"Doesn't look like it," _she said, paused. _"You think that shooting has got something to do with us?" _

"Looks like a duck, doesn't it?"

Mia chuckled, but sobered up immediately. _"Just be careful, okay?"_

"I always am."

_"Yeah right." _

The area of the blackout was large and while it had hit fairly late at night, it was also the middle of the Loop. Well before Pearce hit the edge of it, the shockwave had already clogged the streets. Pearce pushed in as far as he could go with the car, then simply stopped and got out. The blackouted area was right ahead of him, but it wasn't pitch-black. The darkness was cut up with car headlights and the flickering streaks of phones used as flashlight, there was the odd lighter held up. Some people seemed to have abandoned their vehicles and were heading away from it. In the distance, Pearce spotted the rotating lights from police and from a few streets off, he heard the siren of a firetruck.

He pulled his phone out as he kept walking, found a ctOS camera still working and used it to take a look across the area ahead. He picked up several phone signals, jumped from one to the other as the scenery changed. In the shifty light, the deeper he got into the blackouted zone, the more it resembled ground zero of some kind of attack, or at least a large-scale accident. Several cars piled up over each other, jammed together by bent metal and burning rubber.

Pearce looked up, but the cloud of black smoke was invisible between the high-rise buildings on either side. On his phone, he scrolled through the carnage until he was close to the front of Heather's safe-house. A police cruiser had been turned on it's side, but it's dash-cam was still working. Scattered around an open space were more burning cars. The bodies of two uniformed cops lay close by, both either dead or unconscious. There was no other movement, just the flames.

Pearce cut the connection to the dash-cam, hit the dial button and pocketed the phone, broke into a run even while the dial tone rang quietly in his earpiece.

"Where are you?" Pearce asked as he wove through the pedestrians leaving the blackouted area, ignoring the looks they send after him.

_"Near LaSalle station,"_ Jordi answered. _"A steam pipe blew right in my path. I hate to say it, but whatever's going down, probably already did." _

Pearce scowled and kept his agreement to himself. He pulled his mask over his face as he went, breathing a little easier when the abrasive sting of the smoke filtered through it.

"There was a shootout and an explosion," Pearce said. "I didn't see Quinn, if you get to her first, keep her alive."

_"There's that word again." _

"Has to get through to you eventually."

The people in Pearce path were increasingly confused, some panicked, trying to get away. The stench of burning was in the air and an ominous glow hung over the abandoned cars. Pearce slowed down a little, leapt on top of a car and stopped, surveyed the scene. There were more bodies than he'd spotted through the cameras, at least six strewn around in front of the apartment building. He guessed there'd been a shootout with Heather's PSD. The attackers had taken cover behind their cars, explaining the uneven half circle they formed around the door. A police cruiser had crashed into them, perhaps intentionally, knocking some of them out. Cops had joined the fray, but at some point, a stray bullet or just because of the crash, at least one of the cars had blown up.

He jumped from the car and advanced slowly, walked from one body to the next. He'd seen enough death, he didn't expect many of these people to still be alive and there were no surprises. Their causes of death varied, though. Two of the men at the door had been shot, one had taken a headshot, but his companion had taken a bullet to the stomach and bled out.

He left the door and checked with the cops, but it was much the same. One buried underneath a car, another with a bullet in the shoulder and the throat. Pearce took a deep breath as he straightened away from the body to look around, then stepped along the half-circle of cars. The attackers hadn't fared any better. The Club soldier all wore bulletproof vests, but they had provided little protection against the sharp-edged pieces of metal the exploding car had hailed them with.

Something moved, just at the edge of his vision.

Snapping around, he swung the baton free and ducked low against the side of a smouldering car. It took him a moment to find the source of movement again, too faint to come from an enemy. Half buried behind debris and hidden in the shadows, a man had struggled into a sitting position, though he made no other attempt to move. Pearce watched him for a moment, until his eyes adjusted and he could make out the details. The man had been caught in the explosion, his clothes were tattered and singed, just like what was visible of his skin.

Pearce approached him carefully, then crouched down slowly by the man's side, taking in his state, recognising him as one of Ramsey's team.

A length of metal was buried deep in the man's chest, just above the collarbone, blood was pushing out with every laboured breath. He focussed sluggishly on Pearce, turned his head and even then didn't seem to see him.

Pearce pulled the mask down, plastered a softer expression on his face.

"Help is coming," he said quietly. "Don't pull out the metal, it's keeping you alive right now. You get that?"

The man blinked slowly. He started lifting a hand, flexing his fingers as if he planned to trace along the metal in his chest, but either lacked the strength or conviction to do it, or he understood what Pearce was actually telling him.

"You were protecting Heather Quinn," Pearce continued. "Do you know what happened to her?"

The flare in the man's eyes betrayed him, he _knew, _but he made no attempt to speak. His chest rose and fell, his breath rattled in the quiet.

"I'm not here to hurt her, I'm going to save her," Pearce said, leaned in a little closer. "But you'll have to help me."

The man just stared at him, determination made him press his lips into a thin line. His gaze skittered away from Pearce and his head drooped back a little.

Pearce shook his head, impatience nagging at him. He heard the police siren in the distance, his time was running out.

"I'm no friend of the Chicago South Club," he said. "Who do you think gave Heather Quinn in the first place? Tell me, come on."

"You…" the man croaked.

"Yes, me," Pearce said, a little sharper. "Where is she?"

The man tried to take a breath, blinked slowly a few times, but either broke or resolved to trust Pearce. Either was fine with him.

"I don't know… she… Ben and she ran down that ally when shit started to blow up. I… there were guys after them. I didn't… I couldn't… help."

Pearce looked over his shoulder at the gaping maw of the ally the man had indicated.

"Thank you," he said then, looked back down at the man. "You hear the siren? You just focus on that, okay? Stay awake. Help will be here any minute."

He didn't linger with the man, not to make sure he was listening or whether there was resolve in him or not. It'd be long minutes until help really came and longer until he was found in all the wreckage if he couldn't draw attention because he was too weak or passed out.

Pearce stalked to the ally, quickly but carefully. It didn't feel like an ambush was waiting for him, but while he trusted his instincts, he knew they were a blunt weapon at best. There were more bodies strewn around the ally, cops in uniform, Ramsey's team-member in normal clothes, Club soldiers in more advanced combat gear, but even here, everything was silent, no hidden gunman to take a shot and there was no place left for him to hide, either. The fight had turned trash containers upside down, dispersing their contents across the street.

"Pearce," someone called, very quietly.

Half-buried under a Club soldier, Pearce spotted Heather Quinn amidst debris and trash in a pool of blood. The Club soldier had a shard buried in his neck from the side, it must have ruptured an artery and he'd bled out within moments, burying Heather under his weight.

Pearce dragged him off with some ineffectual help from Heather. She raised her head at him, glared, but then let her head drop back. She sighed. She was drenched in blood and made no attempt to get up.

"Are you hurt?"

"Yes," she said, but her voice was barely audible.

Pearce dropped to a knee by her side. "Can you walk?"

"No," she breathed. She made an aborted move, trying to get up anyway, but her body shook too much for her to get anywhere.

Pearce reached out a hand and she stilled. He stood up, cast a quick glance up and down the ally.

"Jordi? You still there?"

_"Should be near, something exploded here, have you noticed?"_

"Take the first ally on the left."

It took another few minutes until Jordi appeared in the ally. He arched his brows at the carnage, rested a momentarily thoughtful look on Heather, then focussed on Pearce.

"I didn't do it," Pearce said.

Jordi gave a quick, sharp grin. "I wasn't making any assumptions."

"We'll be heading for Quincy," Pearce said, he pushed the baton closed in his hands, then bent down to gather Heather in his arms. She winced, folded an arm around his back and fisted her hand into the leather of his coat.

"I don't know if anyone's still looking for her," Pearce said to Jordi. "I need you to shadow us, I can't do much when I'm carrying her."

Jordi shrugged. "You got it."

* * *

Heather swam back into consciousness on an operating table, floating inside a bubble of painlessness. Outside that bubble, there was a needle going through the skin on her stomach, there was the heat of burns on her shoulder and the cresting exhaustion of waning adrenaline.

"You should never remove things," an unknown voice chided, close by, so she assumed it was whoever was patching her up. She was too tired to check.

"I didn't," Pearce answered, gravelly voice bare of any inflection. "She did. She used the shard to defend herself."

Pearce was further away, on the other side of the room perhaps and Heather could easily picture him, watching her and the surgeon like a hawk.

She remembered the past few hours only in flashes, too much happening too quickly and none of it pleasant.

The pulling and tucking on her body stopped and she lay for a while undisturbed. It occurred to her that she would have to move soon, open her eyes and face the music.

"I stopped the internal bleeding," the surgeon said, moving away from her. "The hand was pretty bad, too, but it'll heal. She needs rest."

She heard herself chortle, shocked herself back into reality with it and opened her eyes, staring at a grey ceiling and grey walls, clearly belonging to a surgery housed in a basement room, but at least it seemed to be kept fastidiously clean.

"Are we done?" Pearce asked.

She turned her head to watch her surgeon sit on a stool by her side, looking across the room at Pearce poised casually in the doorway.

The surgeon hesitated, glanced at her briefly, then back to Pearce. He said, "That's Heather Quinn."

A smile tucked at the corners of her mouth at his incredulity, but Pearce was more interesting. He just waited, pointedly unaffected by the implication-heavy silence filling the room, letting the surgeon's imagination run wild with whatever threat he needed.

Finally the surgeon flustered and said, "Not that it's any of my business."

Heather felt her jaw snap as she opened her mouth, clenched too tight for too long. She said, "It's not."

She brought her hands under her and pushed herself up. The surgeon immediately jumped up to help her and the pain punctured her bubble sharply. She bared her teeth, caught Pearce's gaze, he hadn't moved at all.

"Mrs. Quinn," the surgeon said. "Keep an eye on the bandages. If you start bleeding, or if the wounds start weeping, you've got to come back. Watch for infection, too. I cleaned everything up, but there's no telling. I'll pack you some painkillers and more bandages."

It took her a moment to recognise the real worry in his tone. "Thanks," she said.

"Don't," Pearce remarked. "He's charging me for it."

The surgeon shrugged, unabashed. "I got to earn my living."

He let go of Heather and stepped back, walked to the back of the room and washed his hands.

For the first time, Pearce seemed to really acknowledge her presence in the room at all, cool eyes assessed her critically, but he kept his thoughts to himself.

The surgeon glanced over his shoulder and cleared his throat. "My payment…" he begun.

Pearce only made a small movement with his hand, drawing attention to the phone there. "Already done."

The surgeon's phone beeped in his pocket, startled him a little and he fished it out with still damp hands. Heather couldn't see the phone, but she recognised the surprise on his face well enough.

"We're leaving," Pearce announced and drew back into the hallway.

Heather slipped from the bed and stood for a moment awkwardly, barefoot on the cold floor. The surgeon rifled through the cabinets along the wall, pulled out bandages and a packet of painkillers, shoving both into Heather's hands.

* * *

Heather sunk into the passenger seat of Pearce's car, still clutching the bandages and wondering if it was too soon to start with the painkillers. Her belly felt as if it had been ripped open, her innards all messed up and then sewn closed again. Though, she supposed that wasn't far from the truth.

Pearce was focussed on his phone when she got in the car and didn't put it away immediately. His glance passed over her and he said, "I got a call to make."

He started the car, tabbed his phone. They were parked on some gravel backyard and the car shook before they hit the street, beating through the shrinking bubble protecting her from discomfort. She settled her head into the headrest, listened to Pearce's conversation.

"Heather Quinn," he said with emphasis. "You can say it, no one's listening in."

She wondered if that was true for anyone in Chicago, if he was just cocky and setting himself up for a fall.

"Trust me," he added. "Heather's fine. I'm taking her to a safe-house for now. - - - No, not until we found Ramsey's mole."

He listened for a moment, then said, "They can't dismantle all their operations. Too expensive, too many people, too muck data redundancy. There's time."

She turned her head to watch his profile against the early morning gloom outside the window, trying to read in his face. She doubted he would say anything on the phone she could use against him later.

"I'll call you back once we're settled in. There's a folder called 'springbreak', I need you to set it up. - - - Yeah, I did." He chuckled, said, "Wouldn't you like to know. - - - I'll get back to you."

She didn't see him hang up, but she was barely looking at him anymore. The city was taking shape beyond the windshield. She recognised the area, Mad Mile, not too far from the Merlaut Hotel where Lucky had died those years ago.

She said, "I need new clothes."

She felt his attention snap to her, the gaze passing over her, but she didn't deign to look back. Her clothes were torn in several places, the surgeon had cut her blouse up to her armpit to get to her wound on the side of her stomach.

"Good idea," he agreed. He sounded amused. She saw the slight shift as he thumbed on his phone again, it took a few glances down and back up on the street, he wasn't slowing down, then he called someone again.

"You got out alright?" Pearce asked on the phone, barely a phrase, but Heather was fairly certain he wouldn't extend even that courtesy if he didn't like the person on the other end. She guessed he was talking to the fixer from earlier. She only recalled him vaguely, she'd been too out of it.

"Don't," Pearce said. "I need you to buy some clothes. - - - Doesn't matter, something practical. - - - Size 6, shoes is an 8." Whatever answer he got, it seemed to amuse him, but it barely made it to his voice. "They don't have to. - - - Yeah. I'll text you an address, don't waste time."

She didn't want to ask him how he knew these things about her. She supposed it was easy information to find, after all. Her tailor had her measurements on her computer and perhaps she'd typed it in a search engine, once, without thinking about it, but the internet had a long memory and he the patience to dig it up. He could just as easily have asked her, but he'd chosen not to.

"What now?" she asked.

"There's a mole on Ramsey's team," he answered. "Until I know who it is, I can't give you back. Something like tonight could happen again, it doesn't have to go down so harmlessly."

"I told you."

She couldn't find the energy to put much vitriol into it, but that was the good thing about dealing with subtle people, she didn't need to and the idea would still get across.

"But it's not over," she added and it wasn't a question. He wasn't going to let go of her so easily, if anything, he was going to hold on to her harder.

"No, I'll figure something out with Ramsey," he said. He braked sharply on a stop sign, used the reprieve to look at her directly. She turned her head to meet his gaze.

"You just keep holding up your end."

"Under your supervision?" she asked, choked on a laugh.

The corner of his mouth twitched, but if he was amused again or if it was disgust, she wasn't sure.

"Keeps you honest," he said.

She let his gaze dig into hers for a long moment before she decided to blink and dismiss the contest, leave it hanging and open-ended. She didn't feel him withdraw his attention, but he accelerated the car again, as unbothered as she was.

* * *

_End of _Femme Fatale - Part 3_

* * *

**While we're at it... ****Recommended watching:** If you're looking for something satisfying to watch, give 'Ray Donovan' and 'Banshee' a chance, they are my two most recent favourites.

**(So… **Jordi? Are you sure that blown steam-pipe had nothing to do with you and maybe a little accidental slip of the thumb?)


	55. Femme Fatale - Part 4

**Author's Note: **For some reason, everybody's clothing needed to be described all the time and I _despise _describing clothing. There's no subtle way to do it. Last time this sort of thing happened, I made Aiden go shirtless in Firewalker just so I didn't have to. Is it okay if I set the rest of this story in a everybody's-a-nudist AU?

* * *

**_Femme Fatale - Part 4**

* * *

Heather was woken unkindly, some milling cutter tearing into concrete nearby. She dimly recalled construction sites in the street, still abandoned and quiet when they'd driven past them hours before. The area consisted of old warehouses and seemed to be in the process of being converted to high-prized loft for those who could afford it.

Her body hurt dully while was lying on the bed, but the moment she sat up the pain flared up sharply, almost wringing a cry from her. She clamped her mouth shut tightly instead and sat still until the pain abated enough for her to get up. It turned out, Pearce was among those who could afford it. He didn't live in this place, though. It felt and looked empty and when she opened the wardrobe in the bedroom, the few clothes there were carelesslyto folded, some still in their plastic wrapping and with the tags still attached.

She found bags on a table by the bed with new clothes for herself, a glance revealed something slippery and black and dark jeans. She ignored it for now, pushed the wide sliding door aside to find herself in a large room, open kitchen on the right, a set of leather couches on the left. The far wall was occupied by a long, heavy table, black screens mirroring the room back at her. It didn't seem as impressive a computer setup as she had imagined, just two screens and a stack of towers, their ventilation whirring quietly to itself.

There was no sign of Pearce.

A paper-bag stood on the kitchen counter, full of food, but the thought of eating made her feel queazy and reminded her of the state of her intestines. Prompted, she pulled her old blouse up, but she saw only the bandage around her waist, she slipped her hand over it slowly without putting too much pressure on it. Her right hand was also bandaged, it hurt to flex her fingers, but it was just this side of bearable. She recalled the moment she'd wrapped her fingers around some hard-edged shard buried in her belly. Pulling it from her flesh had hurt far worse than the short instant it had taken to puncture her. The man who'd come after her was out of bullets, he'd launched himself at her. It had seemed like none of them had wanted to take her alive. He'd have choked her with his bare hands for however long it took. So the unyielding thing stuck inside her body had been the only other option.

_"Hey there." _

Heather snapped around, winced at the pain and narrowed her eyes. One of the computer screens had come alive, showing the face of a young woman.

Heather walked to the desk slowly, trailing her gaze along the walls around the room, looking for the cameras.

"Where's Pearce?" Heather asked.

_"Fixing things with Ramsey," _the girl said. _"He'll be back in a few hours. He said to tell you that trying to leave wouldn't be a good idea. You're also pretty safe there, so that's a plus, right?" _

"You work for him?"

_"Obviously," _the girl said cheerfully. _"I'm Ella. So… uh, you shouldn't get your bandages wet, so don't take a bath, but it's okay to get cleaned up. There's food if you feel up to it. I'm afraid Pearce bought it, so I hope you aren't into clean eating. If you feel like you're bleeding out or something like that, just shout, okay? I'm right here."_

Heather ignored the dig at her appearance, she knew she looked at her worst, but studied the girl instead, wondering where she fit in all of this. She looked nice, barely in her twenties and in a good mood despite the bags under her eyes. She wasn't what Heather, or anyone, had imagined an accomplice of Pearce to look like, but perhaps that was the point. Hacker-types came in all shapes and sizes, more so than other vocations, so perhaps this made sense, too.

"You're watching me," Heather said.

_"It's not as creepy as it sounds," _the girl said.

Heather snorted and didn't comment.

_"It's for your own safety," _the girl added and tried hard not show how uncomfortable she was with the topic. That was the problem with young associates, Heather thought, easy on the eye, but not so hard-boiled. Pearce would be hard to crack, but the girl, now, she had potential.

Heather only said, "It's fine."

She turned away from the screen and the girl seemed just as happy to drop it.

* * *

There were always several things on the mind of EADA Phineas Ramsey. His mind just worked like that, it never quite seemed to slow down, never at rest, always focussed on his most important goals. It had been hell on his relationship, since high school, through college and right to his last breakup seven years before. _Like trying to be in love with a motherfucking computer, _he been told, in these words or similar ones, each time someone walked out of his door. He supposed it should bother him, but it never seemed worth the effort. People made their choices and as long as these choices kept them within the confines of the law, it was no concern of his.

What _did _bother him was Heather Quinn and the well-orchestrated attack that had taken her away from him. What bothered him were the dead police officers scattered around a Chicago city street. It bothered him that ctOS had once again proved just how ineffective it could be if the wrong hand was at its controls. The Blume liaison had been subserviently apologetic about the incident and he supposed the almost complete absence of details on the news were Blume's way of making up for it.

If he was honest with himself, he derived a certain satisfaction from this failure. He didn't much like this age of smart devises he found himself in. He didn't trust computer algorithms to reveal much about human nature, they were more complex and more contradictory than just a strong of ones and zeroes. Perhaps the future was going to be different, but for him, in his life, he trusted himself far more than any machine.

Blume had been ridiculously unable to find even a trace of Heather Quinn or provide more than a very vague reconstruction of events. It was no satisfying result when weighed against the lives lost and the money spent. And it paled even more spectacularly when compared to the cost it would demand from all of them if Heather Quinn returned to the Club and helped repaired the damage her talking with Ramsey had already infliced.

Ramsey registered the sound of the door opening, audible over the rush of water as he washed his hands. He noticed and dismissed it, but when he straightened and turned around, the pieces fell into place so perfectly it cut like glass.

Aiden Pearce had pulled the door closed behind him, blocked the way flawlessly despite being somewhat smaller than his images — and image — tended to make him appear. He looked unassuming, dressed in the same generic badly tailored suit that barely registered anymore. A visitor's badge hung around his neck, the computer-readable code dully reflective in the restroom's unflattering lighting.

Ramsey recognised the phenomenon. In the beginning, Pearce's coat and hat and mask had been a way of camouflage, but once his appearance had entered public awareness, its function had been turned on its head. Now, he was invisible the precise moment he took these things off.

"I knew it was you," Ramsey said, unconcerned with the brief moment of shock of finding Pearce there. It made too much sense to indulge in his own surprise.

Pearce looked calm, despite what Ramsey knew was a risky gamble. No matter how well-prepared and thought-out a plan it was, Pearce could never be certain he'd walk away again.

"Quinn is safe," Pearce said. "You have a mole on your team. I couldn't find them, but you know them better. Until that's taken care of, Quinn stays with me."

Ramsey suspected he knew where Pearce was going with this, but it seemed juvenile to him, unsuitable to the both of them. Ramsey shook his head, leaned his hip against the sink and gestured slightly with his hand to emphasise his point in case Pearce wasn't quite as smart as he pretended to be.

"That's not going to work," Ramsey pointed out.

"You haven't listened to my offer."

"And I don't have to," Ramsey said. "You want me to continue Heather Quinn's questioning through some webcam setup you have in some hideaway somewhere. She's in a place I don't know and can't control. I have to be in the same room, you must understand that. How would I even know when she's lying? Only when you tell me? Because you hang around somewhere behind the camera? There is not a defence attorney worth his salt who wouldn't tear everything she says to shreds and I can't think of many judges who wouldn't help them. Whatever she gives me under those conditions, I won't be able to use it. Your very involvement makes it practically inadmissible by default."

Pearce said nothing for a moment, his eyes narrowed in irritation, but his expression remained unchanged otherwise while he considered the truth of what Ramsey had said.

"What if I return her later?" Pearce asked.

This, more than anything, actually did surprise Ramsey. He'd expected Pearce to be more stubborn. Men like him, they had no patience for the way the law worked, no tolerance for its slow, often convoluted and sometimes poor results. After all, that was the driving force behind a vigilante's conviction.

"That depends," Ramsey conceded. "How long do you want to keep her?"

"Until you plug the leak."

The thought raised Ramsey's heckles, if only a little. He trusted his team, he knew them inside out and the very assumption one of them had turned on him was an insult. Which, however, didn't mean it was untrue. It paid to keep a realistic outlook on these things.

Ramsey pushed a hand through his hair, a show of indecision he allowed himself because it was unlikely to cause any damage.

"Any suggestion of where to start?" he asked, half in jest, but he suspected Pearce had his fingers deep in his team's personnel files already.

The ghost of a smile flitted across Pearce's composed expression. He said, "Two hours before the attack, your man, Thomas Carr, made a call to an unregistered prepaid phone."

"That's not a lot."

"The recipient was somewhere in the Mad Mile district. Calls like that are hard to track. I could do it or," he said. "You get Blume to do it for you."

Ramsey thought about it. "Carr died," he pointed out. "They _all _died. If I were selling out on that scale, I'd make sure I'm alive to profit from it."

Pearce shook his head. "Things like that, they don't always go down according to plan. It could've been an accident, or the Club was just tying up loose ends. Death doesn't prove innocence."

It was hard to argue with it, even if Ramsey didn't like the scenario that was slowly taking shape. He'd worked with Carr for years, his death had rattled him worse than he was willing to admit outside the privacy of his own thoughts.

Ramsey found himself nodding slowly to himself, acknowledging at least the _potential _truth Pearce's suspicions held.

For the first time, Pearce moved, if only to make a small step forward, toeing the line before he crossed into Ramsey's personal space in the narrow room.

"Can you make it work?" Pearce asked.

Ramsey took the question seriously, spent the time he needed to think it through and follow all the possible implications of this peculiar constellation. He took a heavy sigh, unhappy with the outcome every single time.

"Ideally, you bring her back immediately."

"Not happening."

"I see. Well, in that case, I can work with what she's given me so far and we clean house in the meantime. But…" he paused, thought it through one more time. "If it takes too long, it'll fall apart and we'd have to start from scratch. The Club isn't just sitting there. Every day that passes, they have a day to do their own cleaning. There'll come a point where Heather Quinn won't have anything worthwhile to say."

"Better hurry then," Pearce said. Ramsey suspected he understood the problems Ramsey was facing, but Pearce didn't much care how easy or difficult they were to handle. Pearce wanted results, it was entirely in line with his character.

Something else occurred to him, though, and it made him chuckle dryly. "I have to ask, even if it's cliché, why do you think I'd let you leave?"

His question was met with the same parched amusement. "Your priorities," Pearce answered.

"Is that so? Because it looks like you might be the bird in my hand. I could cut my losses," he wagged his head a little, pretending to consider. "Arguably, you're the bigger prize."

Pearce shook his head slightly, neither intimidated nor upset. Very calmly, he said, "Yeah, you'd just lose everything."

"You're very certain of yourself," Ramsey remarked. "You see yourself as the lesser evil compared to the Club, but I know many people who'd disagree."

Pearce didn't answer, only shrugged. Ramsey wondered briefly what Pearce thought of him, coming here like this, risking so much just for a chat.

"I'll know when it's done," Pearce said, already dismissing Ramsey's potential threat. He turned to go, his hand already at the door.

"Wait," Ramsey called and Pearce stopped, glanced back over his shoulder. "Well, maybe you have your ways, but what if I need to contact you?"

Pearce didn't react immediately. He must have expected many things, perhaps even that Ramsey turned on him and risked a messy hunt for Pearce. He hadn't expected a working relationship, no matter how fleeting.

Pearce nodded. "I'll drop you a message with contact information."

He didn't say that any contact might be used to track him, at any given moment. Ramsey didn't have the means, he didn't understand the technology, but CPD and Blume had better resources.

Pearce waited another moment, but when Ramsey said nothing, he left. Ramsey spotted the 'out of order' sign on the outside of the restroom door, caught a brief glimpse of his colleges passing by outside in the corridor.

Pearce was right, of course. Ramsey couldn't anticipate what would happen if Pearce was taken out of the equation. Fear of Pearce kept the Club occupied in many small ways, leaving them open and vulnerable for any attack coming from a different direction. With him gone, or even just the target of a city-wide manhunt, the Club and the gangs would breath a lot freer.

By the time Ramsey returned to his desk, he found a new email waiting for him, with the subject line 'contact'. Once this was over, he'd let the IT department have a shot at this. Pearce was too dangerously unstable to be allowed to remain free.

* * *

By the time Pearce returned, Heather had cleaned herself up and dressed. She'd forced down half a toast and, with somewhat more enthusiasm, a generous amount of painkillers.

Some further investigation of the place had revealed that the front door was locked and so was the weapons' cabinet in the living room. The computers didn't respond, although she could hear them humming quietly, proving they were running. She'd mapped the cameras, living room, bedroom and bath, but she doubted she'd spotted them all. The loft's windows were too high up for her to reach, even if she climbed on top of a table. It wasn't a bad choice for a hideout. Snipers would have a hard time finding a target with these windows and their frosted glass distorted everything they might make out.

Once the pain had let up, she'd curled up on the bed and fallen asleep. When she woke up again, it was late in the afternoon and the light was soft and golden. She rolled on her back and let the light fall on her face for a moment, enjoying the tranquility. The move had caused the skin to pull on her stitches, but she felt like she was hardening to it slowly. It still hurt, but it had become somehow irrelevant.

Steeling herself, she slowly sat up, then slipped to her feet and walked into the living room.

Pearce had his back to her, focussed on the computer in front of him, data scrolling past all the screens, status messages and split-screen surveillance video from somewhere in Chicago. In a corner was a live-feed from the girl, whose name certainly wasn't 'Ella'. She was talking, but there was no sound, so Heather assumed Pearce wore some kind of earpiece.

It took a moment for him to notice her. He hit a key and some of the data on the screen in front of him stopped. He looked over his shoulder and studied her silently. She looked pale, she knew, and bleary-eyed despite having slept for hours, but his assessment had less to do with her looks and more with her health.

"You talked with Ramsey," she said.

"Yes," he confirmed. "I thought you two can keep talking, I got the setup here, but Ramsey…" he left it open, didn't seem too happy about the call Ramsey had made.

She had to laugh a little. "He didn't want to do it, did he?"

"No."

He typed something on the computer, muttered something inaudible before the window with the girl closed. In getting up, he picked up a tablet and strode to the couch.

"I have a few questions," he said as he sat down.

For a moment, she resisted the gravitational pull of him, the casual way he thought he could command her. She forced herself to relax, or at least its imitation, then she walked to the couch and sat down.

"When I called you, you said the man with you at the time was working for the Club," Pearce began without any preamble. "At the time, your PSD consisted of Elliot Cho and Frank Taylor. Who were you talking about?"

"I didn't know their names," she said. "I mean, not as corrupt cops." She held out her hands helplessly. "I see and talk to a lot of people."

When Pearce just waited, she answered, "Taylor."

"Hmm," Pearce made, focussed on the tablet. "After the call, I checked both Cho and Taylor, there is nothing."

He looked up, expression as if he expected her to look caught, but she felt nothing of the sort.

Smiling slightly, she said, "I thought you'd be smarter than that."

"How so?"

"The times have been changing fast in the last few years. Criminals had to adapt. Me, the Club, the gangs, even the Militia when they're sober. Everyone knows ctOS is always watching. Everyone _knows _the tech isn't safe. And that's why everyone had to find ways around it."

"You're saying Taylor managed to do all of this offline?"

She took a breathe, buying herself a little time. "We're not talking about existing outside the grid. We're talking about slipping in a covet meeting here or there. On the subway, at the deli, having a smoke. Not even ctOS can keep track of all of it. Or, I mean, it _does _keep track of all of it. But how would it tell the difference between two strangers waiting for the L? Or strangers flirting at the bar? That kind of thing? ctOS doesn't know what it's looking at."

She thought about it and added, "Yet."

He didn't seem impressed by her speech. He glanced at the tablet, skimming through some information hidden from her sight, but she had a feeling it was force of habit.

"In other words, if I tracked Taylor manually, eventually I'd come across this meet?" he asked.

"I suppose," she shrugged. "Or you won't, because we have hackers working for us and people at Blume who feed us information. ctOS has blind spots, it malfunctions, it can be _made to _malfunction. You don't need to be told that, do you?"

He ignored the rhetorical question, scrolled through the data and then turned the tablet, holding it out to her.

"Thomas Carr, what about him?"

She studied the picture on the tablet. She remembered him from her stay in the CPD safe-house. He'd liked to talk, his private life was messy. His wife was divorcing him, he was starting to feel old while his life was stuck on a treadmill.

"No," she said. "If he worked for the Club, I've never seen it."

Again Pearce only made a noncommittal sound in his throat.

"What is it about him?"

He looked up at her, studied her again, weighing what he needed to reveal to her if he wanted results.

"Just a hunch," he finally answered, gaze already back on the tablet. He tabbed on it a few times, then got back to his feet and walked back to the computer.

Absent-mindedly cupping her bandaged side, she settled as comfortably as she could into the inflexible leather of the couch and let her gaze drift around the room. The cameras were all still there, but she wondered if he had turned them off, if he didn't like to be observed himself. It was a security risk, any hacker who breached his network could see right into his living room, or at least this temporary abode of his. On the hand, he strived so much in this world of constant surveillance, perhaps it made him uneasy _not _to be filmed. People had strange habits like that sometimes, especially if, like Pearce, led a very singular existence.

It must have been years since any Club member had been this close to him. He'd been a nobody then, Heather supposed he'd taken their money on more than one occasion, just like any other insignificant fixer in the city. Since then, she'd often wondered who else was there among the fixers, whose talents could be harnessed. If they'd found Pearce and recruited him, early enough in his life, perhaps Lucky's grand plan of putting chains on Blume could have lasted much longer.

Of course, with Lucky and Niall still in the picture, she wasn't sure how important her own role would've become. Lucky had liked her, but she hadn't seen him often enough to know what to make of it. She'd enjoyed the jet-setting life with Kenneth, glamorous, but ultimately fated to grow boring.

"What will happen to me?" she asked. She'd spoken quietly, but Pearce straightened immediately and turned around. He settled his back against the table.

"You'll stay here," he said.

"With you."

"We'll see."

He was about to turn away again, but she said, "Why are you doing this?"

His expression rarely gave anything away. His range of emotions seemed stuck on a narrow range between faint amusement and annoyance, but now his face hardened.

"I'm not the one who has to explain himself," he said. "You run the Chicago South Club. You engage in the same shit as Niall and Lucky. You buy and sell human beings and the only excuse you manage to come up with is _someone's got to do it. _If I can stop you, I will."

Slowly, she pushed herself to her feet and took a few steps in his direction. "I never made any excuses," she said.

"Really? You said if the Club goes down, it'll just be the Russians."

Step by deliberate step, she crossed the space to him. "I was pointing out the futility of what you do," she said. "It wasn't meant to be an excuse."

He gave a dry laugh. "I don't know if that's better or worse."

Her approach jostled him from his still somewhat relaxed position, standing upright, he was taller than her, but he had nowhere to retreat with the table at his back. She didn't know if it bothered him at all when she stepped well into his personal space.

"At least I'm not a hypocrite," she said.

"And I am?" he challenged, anger flashed through his eyes.

"That's something Ramsey said to me," she replied. "You break the law, you break the law." She shrugged, an unconscious imitation of Ramsey's deadpan body language. "You're just another criminal, pretending to be better. And what has it cost you so far? More than you'd ever admit, I bet. Is it worth it?"

Pointedly, she looked away from him for a second, at the computer rig behind his back and everything it stood for. When she looked back at him, she caught that he'd followed her gaze and his attention lingered there. His expression turned briefly pensive and it left a fissure in his armour.

Standing so close already, it was easy to just reach out and put her uninjured hand against the side of his face. He turned his head under her touch, facing her again, but before she even leaned in to kiss him, she realised she'd read him wrong. He didn't tense, his pupils didn't blow wide and his breathing remained perfectly even. He didn't push her hand away, though, or simply walk out of her reach.

Inwardly, her first impulse was to draw back and let him go. Outwardly, all she did was curve her lips into a sad smile and said, "I'm sorry."

She didn't take her hand back.

"Why?" he asked, low-voiced, she felt the vibration under her fingertips when he spoke.

"Because I can't kiss you," she said. "Without you thinking I'm trying to manipulate you."

"Better that way," he said lightly. "You'd reopen your stitches."

She laughed a little. "With just a kiss?"

He raised his eyebrows, "Oh come on, don't tell me you weren't going to put out."

He'd known she'd do this and now he was mocking her for it. The fury seethed at the back of her mind, but giving up was the first part of losing and she forced it back down before it could give her away. She slipped her hand away with a slow caress, watching his eyes for any sign she was affecting him at all.

"You have to do two things for me," she said, holding her ground right in front of him after dropping her hand.

"Have to?" he echoed disdainfully.

"First, I want to see Iain. And then you kill my husband."

* * *

_End of _Femme Fatale - Part 4_

* * *

**Another Author's Note:** I feel like I deliberately set Heather up for that last little bit. Last time I seduced Aiden I needed three chapters of setup and in that instance he actually _liked _the girl. In this case, he's trying very hard not to snap her neck, which is about the limit of his sympathy.


	56. Femme Fatale - Part 5

**Author's Note: **Really fucking long chapter. On the upside, you were spared a cliffhanger. I wrote most of this in one go. I think I've never written so many words in such a short time. Hot damn.

* * *

**_Femme Fatale - Part 5**

* * *

"Why?"

Pearce sat on the couch across from her, slightly off-centre with his left arm resting on the back. His phone lay on the couch by his right hand, the screen lit brightly, but he'd only occasionally glance in its direction. He'd sometimes reach for it and trace its outline with his fingers, the only sign of impatience in his otherwise relaxed posture.

Heather considered the question for a long minute. She'd been burned by reading him wrong, she saw no reason to repeat the mistake.

"Because you're wrong about him," she said. She took a breath, shook her head a little. "I don't know what you saw when you spied on us. But I guess these things have limitations. Kenneth is Lucky Quinn's son. When Niall died, he was the heir apparent, anyone who wanted the top job had to beat him. But Kenneth, he doesn't have the patience for that sort of thing, he's too brash to manipulate or compromise. He's not a good leader, he doesn't understand the intricacies."

"But you do," Pearce said, so neutrally she could've believed there was no hidden insult, but she knew better.

She refused his cue. "What you saw, before you came after me, that's not common knowledge in the Club. Kenneth is the leader. If he gives an order, there's no one left who'd refuse it. I made sure of that, after Niall's death."

"You think he ordered the hit on you," Pearce said.

She had to smile a little. "No one else would dare. I made sure of that, too."

"Now suddenly he's a good leader?"

"No, but he's using a power structure tailored to him. It'll fall apart on him, when he makes too many wrong decisions, alienates his best people, but that's going to be…" she waved her hand vaguely in the air. "A few months? Maybe a year or two, it depends on the pressure he's put under."

When Pearce didn't answer, Heather leaned forward and added, "You and Ramsey, you don't have that much time."

Pearce narrowed his eyes at her, visibly displeased for a second before he schooled his features again.

"What happens if Kenneth is taken out?"

"It's hard to be certain," she said, honestly. She'd have liked to have a more convincing story for him, but she suspected he'd see through it and it would only weaken her case. "But my best guess is, it'll cause a lot of chaos. There's no obvious candidate to succeed him, so there'll be infighting. It wouldn't destroy the Club, but it would weaken it. And it'd mean you have some time."

"It'd mean your information to Ramsey goes obsolete."

"Not that quickly," she said, smiled cooly. "It'll work. In fact, it'll work to your advantage. It'll make it harder to destroy evidence before Ramsey can secure it. Who knows? Some people might even be willing to sell each other out."

She fixed him sharply and added, "It's a good plan. And it's one of the only ways you can ensure my safety. When Kenneth dies, the bets are off. I have no idea who the mole reports to, maybe they'll go under in the fallout, or go quiet to avoid attention, or they'll trip up. Either way, they won't be as dangerous anymore."

Pearce kept watching her. He uncrossed his legs and sunk a little more comfortably into the couch. His right hand kept playing with the phone, pulling it up and letting it slide through his fingers.

"You don't care for your husband?" he finally asked, tone carefully neutral but with an unexpected note of puzzlement lurking in the background.

She narrowed her eyes at him, felt the anger carve into her face. She said, "I'm selling his entire organisation to the cops. He needs to take me out. And that means, _I _need to take _him _out. It's that or lie down and wait for death."

The wound in her stomach pulsed sharply as she leaned forward, settled her elbows on her knees and fixed him across the table. "It's something I don't do, but don't blame me for something I didn't want."

The phone slipped through his fingers again, thudded on the leather when he let it glide too far and dropped to the side. He kept saying nothing, gaze still hard on her. She wondered if he was already planning how to approach Kenneth, or whether he didn't trust her reasoning well enough to even try. In truth, she hadn't expected him to be quite so resistant to her suggestion. He didn't like the Club, she'd always assumed it was something personal at play and there were enough rumours to back it up, but it turned out to be surprisingly hard to confirm any of them.

Heather forced herself to relax, just a little, in the hope it would transfer to him in some minor way, make him realise she didn't want to be his enemy, at least not right now.

"About before," she started when he continued to say nothing. "I don't want you to misunderstand me."

"Sex is politics," he observed, unimpressed.

Heather chuckled, shook her head. "Not at all, the opposite, in fact. I sleep with people for fun, because I find them attractive. You," she said. "You are an interesting man, I was curious. That's all."

"You don't know me."

She heard the threat in the rough cadences of his voice. He wasn't talking about that one incident, she doubted he cared too much about that, he was warning her of what could happen if she got him wrong one too many times, trying to play him.

"That's right," she agreed, too dismissively. "I don't. But I know you have the skill and the guts to finish what you started."

"By killing Kenneth Quinn."

In sudden exasperation, she threw her hands up, then let herself drop back, winced at the pain of the too-fast movement. She glowered at him. "And we're right back where we started from, you…" she clenched her teeth shut for a second, then said, "Did you even listen?"

Unexpectedly, a smile tucked on the corners of his lips. "I'll look into it," he said as if he'd been meaning to do that all along.

* * *

In the days that followed, Heather only caught snatches and disparate parts of Pearce's planning and preparation. She'd also expected him to be staying with her, in some kind of uncomfortable cohabitation, but while he never stayed away for more than a few hours, he was clearly _living _elsewhere.

She'd caught him sleeping on the couch only once, when she'd been woken again by construction work and padded into the living room one early morning. He'd been sprawling on the couch, booted feet hung over the armrest on one end. By the time she'd taken a few steps into the room, however, he'd already sat up, pulled some kind of plug from his ear. It had taken him a long moment to actually focus on her, reaffix that ill-tempered mask of his over his face. She wondered what he'd been doing, but she already knew he wasn't going to tell her, so asking would just count against her.

She had hoped he'd involve her more closely. She was the obvious insider in Kenneth Quinn's peculiarities. If there was anyone who could predict him, it would be her. Pearce seemed aware of it, but he only quizzed her about things, seemingly at random and usually without giving her much context to figure out where he was at. In fact, she had the feeling he was testing her trustworthiness rather than using her to confirm something he'd learned elsewhere. She wasn't a potential source of information to him, she was a potential liability he was cutting out. It made it hard for her to judge how far he had progressed, it made her itchy and irritable and tired of making nice with him.

Sitting on a barstool, she flexed her left arm where it was prickling from being held up while Pearce was redressing her wound. She kept stoically silent during the procedure, unwilling to show the occasional flashes of pain it caused. The metal shard had ripped her skin and flesh into an ugly, uneven wound that was slow to heal and the pain was a constant, even with the painkillers.

"Keep breathing," Pearce ordered. It jolted her from her ill-fitting reverie. She hadn't realised she'd been holding her breath, anticipating the sting of the ointment.

"I'm fine," she snapped, squaring her shoulders to get rid of some of the tension that only made the pain worse.

"Just breathe," he reiterated, but said nothing more.

Heather fixed her gaze ahead, stared at the kitchen cabinet there as if it was the most interesting thing she'd ever seen. Perhaps Pearce was grateful she made no attempt to come onto him in these moments when she was already half-naked and he had no option but to lean in close and touch her. If he was, he gave no indication.

"When will I see Iain?" she asked and Pearce paused for a moment in what he was doing.

"Soon," he said, but it didn't sound like a commitment.

Hers was clearly not the first bad wound he'd dressed, he did a much better job than she would've been able to on her own, especially with her left hand out of commission, too. Soon enough, he stepped back from her and bagged the old dressing, then pulled the surgical gloves off, meeting her gaze.

"It's going to scar," he said.

"You should see the other guy," she joked, unsure what had prompted the remark. She lowered her arm carefully, then reached for her shirt.

Pearce chuckled, but it wasn't quite the scathing sound she knew from him. The moment didn't last, though. He turned away and went to the sink to wash his hands.

He left immediately afterward, without a word of explanation or some clue when he would be back, leaving Heather more frustrated than she'd started out as. A few hours later, however, Pearce returned with Iain.

* * *

Despite the occasional drizzle of snow and the bite of the wind from the lake, it wasn't a cold January afternoon. It allowed the conversion on the former warehouses to proceed even in the winter months. Some of them had been completed and a few of the new gentry had already moved in, often eyeing their expensive cars suspiciously before they got in, in case some of the bulky trucks had left a scratch.

A food truck had set up shop a little up the street from Pearce's safe-house. It was frequented mostly by construction workers, but the weather was still unpleasant enough that they didn't linger much, just wolfed their food down, talked little among themselves and barely cast a second glance at each other or at Pearce.

_"So let me get this straight," _Mia was saying in his ear. _"Like, when you dropped Iain off with her and she asked you to turn the cameras off and you said yes…" _

"I was lying," Pearce finished nonchalantly and gave a fleeting smile to the vendor as he handed him a hotdog.

_"I mean, I kind of suspected it and all…" _Mia said. _"But you sounded so damn sincere when you said it. You know, that's a little…"_

"Immoral?"

_"I was going to say worrying, but immoral works, too." _

"Hmm," Pearce muttered. He took a bite from the hotdog. "What are they doing?"

_"Well, it seems I was all wrong about why she wanted to see him so badly. Man, she's pissed. Because of the attack on CPD's safe-house, you know? She says she could've died. Uh, do you think Iain even knew about it?" _

"Probably not," he said.

_"Well, she's still blaming him for it big time. I think you need to let her out of there a little more often, she's got cabin fever or something. I was sure when she said she wanted to see him, it was because she missed his pretty face and his six-pack, not just somebody to yell at…" _

"Not mutually exclusive," he remarked, chewing.

_"No, obviously not, because now they're kissing and groping. And… oh, ouch, that looked like it hurt…" _

"I warned her about the stitches."

He took another bite off the hotdog.

Mia didn't say anything for a little while. _"Uh, Pearce?" _Mia asked, much more tentatively than normal. _"It's like, uh, they are getting into it now. Do I actually have to watch them?" _

"Pillow talk's the best part."

_"It feels wrong," _she murmured.

It could practically hear Mia's disapproval crawl through the line, but he wasn't buying it. He highly doubted she'd never hacked her neighbours' webcam just for the entertainment value of it and most of the time it wasn't even that. Cameras, webcams and ctOS surveillance, were a quick way to survey any battlefield, even the lowliest of fixers these days would know how to do it, they couldn't afford not to.

"You don't have to watch, just make sure it's recording."

Heather's reasons for wanting to see Iain were doubtlessly complex. Perhaps she really loved him, but she wasn't the kind of woman who'd let sentiment get in the way of something she really wanted. Pearce didn't trust her, but if he monitored her closely enough, he wouldn't have to.

_"Are you really going after Kenneth Quinn?" _

Pearce shrugged, even though Mia couldn't see him. He said, "It makes sense what she said. Could make Ramsey's job easier, too. Everyone who gets away in the chaos, I can take care of them later. Without the Club's support structure, they'll be easy pickings."

He fell silent when a group of construction workers pushed past him.

"Is it a problem for you?" he asked.

Mia's answer was already in her heavy silence, but she did her best not to let it weigh her voice down too much, _"It's… weird," _she said. _"I'm not sure. Is it a problem that I don't know if it's a problem?" _

"Will it interfere with your job?"

This time, her answer wasn't delayed and she sounded less strained. _"No, absolutely not… couldn't happen to a nicer guy, right?"_

Pearce considered this, but decided to drop it. "What do we have on Kenneth?" he asked to bring the conversation back on track. Mia seemed to perk up immediately.

_"He's still staying in the house in Parker Square. It's busy as shit, lots of coming and going, but I haven't been able to take a look inside." _

"I told you days ago," Pearce remarked with exaggerated surprise. "What's keeping you out?"

_"IT people who actually know about IT security," _Mia grumbled. _"Kenneth Quinn's villa has been renovated with state-of-the art tech. It's some modified version of Blume's SmartHome OS, but I can't figure out a way in. It's got none of the normal vulnerabilities." _

"Makes sense," Pearce remarked. Blume had only recently moved into the home automation market. They had originally adapted ctOS — already meant to network any number of different hardware devises and software services. But more recently they'd rolled out a completely new OS. It was very similar to ctOS, but on a much smaller scale, a good test for whenever they were ready to replace ctOS itself.

_"But not one of them ever clicks on the wrong link!" _Mia complained. _"Or uses 'password' as password? Or forgets to patch? Not one? Not once?" _

"Well, they're working for the mob. Fuck up in your nine-to-five job and you get reprimanded. Fuck up with the mob, you get a pair of concrete shoes."

_"They really do that?" _

He chuckled. "Would you risk it?"

_"No, okay," _Mia huffed. _"So… do you have a way inside?" _

Pearce wiped some spilled mustard from his fingers before he picked up his phone to send Mia the access information.

_"Uh… that's Heather's user account," _she said. _"I bet it's deactivated by now." _

"Unless it's been completely deleted, Blume can use it to access the home network."

_"It's a backdoor?" _

"Yes, Blume doesn't advertise this 'feature', I'm not even sure it isn't just some leftover piece of code from when they implemented the option to remote reset locked user accounts, but just reseting isn't going to help you with Heather Quinn's login data. You can handle it from here?"

_"It's a fucking backdoor! Damn, Blume leaves out nothing, do they? But… yeah, I think I can get in that way." _

Pearce said nothing for a moment, senses turned away from his phone and the conversation to pay attention to what was going on around him, tracking the construction workers and the few pedestrians around him.

Satisfied, he said, "We're going in in two days, no more than that. Ideally, you've got the place mapped by tomorrow, but don't forget to sleep."

_"Priorities," _Mia sniggered. _"Don't worry. I'll get what you need." _

She grew serious again, _"But… are you doing this with Jordi? Or am I going in with you?"_

"Jordi's unavailable for this job," he answered. Jordi didn't like to be seen choosing sides, it went against his sense of independence. He'd rather have somebody experienced to watch his back , but he could do it without backup, if he had a good enough plan.

"I'm going in alone, I need you on monitors."

* * *

Two days later, Pearce was driving over the bridge to Parker Square. May Stadium came into view, brightly lit against the smog domed night-sky and the glimmer of darker velvet and stars, where the richer parts of Parker Square began. His muscle car was a few decades old, a solid and heavy vehicle, a deep rumbling of the engine just at the edge of hearing and even the steering assist system was rough, letting him feel the car's strength through the worn synthetic of the wheel.

There were no gimmicks in this car, no centre-stack console and GPS displays, no wireless on-the-fly connection for smart devises, no HUD projected to the screen. It was just him and the street lights and the pitch-black asphalt in front of him. Casually, Pearce let go of the wheel to change gears as he slowed down, coming down from the bridge and into the smattering of late-night traffic. The car veered off slightly to the left the moment he let it go.

He held his phone to his ear with the other hand.

"One day," he said. "You'll have to pick sides."

_"One day," _Jordi echoed mildly. _"You'll figure out that things aren't in black or white. There are no _sides _to pick. It's everyone for themselves, like reasonable people." _

"It's not 'reasonable' to be against me."

Jordi snorted, _"We have different definitions of what's reasonable. I work for the money, I don't work for you, a fine but important difference. And this job…" _Jordi gave a mannered sigh. _"And let's not get carried away here, you just called to tell me you aren't offering it in the first place. It's nice to feel so… deeply… understood, but I'm also just slightly insulted. You know what happens to predictable people? They get a bullet between the eyes. I should know." _He paused for just a moment. _"What are you up to tonight?" _

Pearce felt the scratch of his own voice in his throat, he said, "Who said it's tonight?"

_"Ah, I see," _Jordi commented. _"It's like that, huh?"_

"Jordi…"

_"Here it comes." _

"You aren't working for the Club, are you?"

Jordi huffed, _"That sounds like a trick question. What do you think?"_

"… tonight," Pearce amended.

_"Because 'nothing' goes down tonight involving the Club?"_

"Yeah."

There was a long pause before Jordi answered. _"No, not tonight, incidentally."_

"Good," Pearce said, took the phone from his ear and hung up before Jordi had a chance to pry more. Perhaps he was being unfair on Jordi and Jordi wouldn't have been opportunistic in the same way he hadn't revealed anything about Heather Quinn, despite the good money he could've made from it. Jordi was wrong, he was choosing sides every time he refused to move against Pearce and he'd been doing it for years. They were merely keeping up appearances, which was why Jordi wasn't going to be on this gig.

Slowing down somewhat as he drove through the residential area, Pearce called Mia.

"All set?"

_"All set," _Mia confirmed. She hadn't originally been happy about being left behind, but she'd finally accepted his logic. If they both went, they'd have to handle the network aspect while they were on the move, relying only on the computing power of phones. Division of labour was the smarter choice. Mia could control the separate strands of surveillance and hacking while he took the immediate heat. The alternative would've been to hire someone else, either as backup for Pearce himself or as a hacker in Mia's stead and he hadn't liked the odds of it. He didn't have enough time to vet them thoroughly and waiting longer would just put everything else in jeopardy.

"Give me a rundown. Manpower first."

_"All right. Kenneth Quinn has a security force of six personnel. Two patrols of two are in the garden, two are on the ground floor in the house. They're armed with handguns. Officially, they're employed by Taurus, a security company owned, a few times removed, by Club associates. They're linked up with the in-house security system and have a whole damn private army ready to go." _

"Yeah, that's why you'll hijack that panic button."

_"No backup for them," _Mia agreed, a grin in her voice. _"I'm ready to block all 911 calls from the area, too, just in case." _

Pearce drove past High Grove, but ignored the closed gate. Traffic was thinning and when the turned into Battery Heights, there was barely any of it left. Some of the villas in the area were brightly lit, he came past one which apparently hosted a party of some kind, but none of them bothered him. Large gardens separated the luxurious houses, suppressed gunfire wouldn't be loud enough to be heard that far.

"In-house security system," Pearce prompted.

_"Motion sensors on the fence and outer gates and all outside doors. They're deactivated for balcony doors on the upper floors, though. There's video surveillance on all floors, the garden and the garage. It's night-vision enabled and backs up a record locally and on a Taurus server. But it's set to a privacy mode where cameras are turned off whenever Kenneth Quinn enters a room. Which is bad, because I have no idea what he's doing, but it's also good because I'll always know where he is." _

"Mics?"

_"Only in ground floor hallways," _Mia said. _"Probably a good idea if they're going to talk business, right?" _

"Yeah," Pearce agreed dryly. "It'd make sense if they didn't all carry phones. What else?"

_"Kenneth Quinn's staff has gone home for the night, so it's just him and his guards, he's currently in the third-floor bathroom. Which, by the way, is bigger than my whole apartment. Crime pays, eh?"_

"So I heard."

_"I've run a background check on the security people, they've all got the story you'd expect, but nothing stands out. I mean, except for the remarkable collection of violent crime records they have. I know it's a bit late to ask that, but are you sure you can handle them?" _

Pearce chuckled a little, "Do they know I'm coming?"

_"No-o," _Mia said. _"It looks all quiet. I'm ready to switch to looped video and now… I'm patching your phone in to the in-house system."_

Pearce heard the confirmation chime in his ear, but didn't take the phone away to check. With the patch, his commands would override all commands from other remotes and Mia could block any direct input into the system.

_"The system's going to raise an alarm if it can't profile your face, so I fed it one of your 'springbreak' profiles, but you'll have to turn the scrambler off." _

He lowered the phone, put the earpiece in with one hand while he loaded the virtual map of the villa. A quick scan revealed that none of the security people were carrying phones, they were only connected to the in-house system. Unfortunately, this meant their location would update with a lag of up to a minute, and many things could happen in that timespan. He found one phone on the third floor, but it was in sleep mode, he assumed it was Kenneth's. He'd check it out later.

He made a quick sweep of the neighbourhood in general, but only skimmed through the information, satisfied when nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Starting the engine, he said, "Ready?"

_"Ready, I'm feeding them the loop," _Mia said then made a sound of surprise. _"Uh, it's not… Come on, what's wrong? Wait, ah, now it's in. You're good to go." _

"You sure?"

_"Yeah, laggy connection, but I've fixed it."_

"Open the gate when I say so," Pearce said.

Working in tandem with Mia was convenient, at the very least. He didn't have to keep an eye on his phone constantly, neither to monitor his surroundings nor to make the environment work for him. He had both hands free, if he needed them and could just tell Mia if he needed something done. She enjoyed that side of things, undisturbed by the moral repercussions of what she was doing while the screen and the network provided a buffer for her consciousness.

He accelerated the car and said, "Open."

The gate unlocked quietly and slid smoothly back on expensive motors, he couldn't hear them over the roar of the car. It closed just as smoothly behind him and he followed the short gravel path to the front door of the villa.

_"Garden guards didn't notice," _Mia informed him. _"And… uh, none of them did." _

Turning off the scrambler, Pearce smirked a little as he got out of the car, stood in the open in front of the steps leading to the door. He could've climbed over a fence in the garden, manipulating the sensors there. He could have lured the guards away from the house, or into another part of it while he climbed in through a window. A balcony above the pool was covered in wooden trellis for ivy to grown on, he could climb it easily and scale the wall from there using the decorative panelling.

Or, he unlocked the front door and walked in. The lights were on, though with just a gentle low glow, bathing the wide hallway in soft shadows. He stopped a moment to listen and give Mia a chance to check her video feeds, but everything was silent.

He walked cautiously, but quickly through the hallway to where his phone said the two guards were, but they had already changed position. If they followed their routine, they were at the back of the house now, dining room and library.

The carpeted stairs were silent under his boots and the only indication of his passing was the way the lights lit up for him in the way they would for anyone authorised to be on the premises. Even if someone saw it, no one would assume an intruder.

When he reached the first floor, Mia said, _"Kenneth Quinn's still in the bathroom, guards are still clueless," _she laughed. _"I can't believe you just walked in there." _

"Between you and me, your method of home defense is far more effective," Pearce advised quietly.

_"Hard to hack a baseball bat," _Mia laughed.

The lights fell away from him as he passed, climbed the stairs to the second floor as swiftly as the first. Quiet music spilled out into the hallway and filled the floor. Pearce stopped on top of the stairs to listen, traced it to the open door at the end of the hallway, where Kenneth Quinn's gaming room was.

Pearce glanced down at his phone, but the network was still running in normal mode. Guard locations had updated, the two in the garden would spot his car in a few minutes and he should be on his way out by then.

From the second floor, a spiral staircase lead up to the third floor's open gallery. He looked up to scan the gallery, but the soft light that had come on revealed nothing suspicious.

_"Kenneth Quinn's still in the bath," _Mia informed him, paused, then added, _"I still have connectivity issues, I'm not sure what's causing them. I _think _the in-house software isn't designed to be operated remotely, but does that make sense? Blume likes to have that kind of access don't they?"_

He didn't like the sound of that, but only grunted a vague affirmative and Mia got the hint, stopped talking and allowed him to concentrate.

Drawing his gun, Pearce slipped to the spiral staircase, it groaned when he took the first step and continued to hound him with the sound. He hoped the music would hide it, or else Kenneth Quinn didn't have the presence of mind to realise it heralded a threat.

_"I can't see you anymore," _Mia announced. _"I don't want to override Quinn's own signal." _

An open-floor bedroom spanned the gallery, furnished and decorated in some kind of modernised Asian style, cutting off portions with paper-covered screens and the glass block wall of the bathroom. He approached it quickly, unwilling to waste more time.

The spiral staircase groaned, the way it'd done when he'd stepped on it before. He snapped his attention back around and the room around him fell into sharper focus. It gave him time to recount all the tiny warning signs and connect them to each other. How quiet it was, that there was no steam or sound of water, no scent from the bath. Mia's connectivity issues and her perpetual blind spot for active resistance to her hacking efforts. How everything had been too damn quiet and too damn easy until this point.

He saw the movement, but he'd stepped too close to a paper screen and whoever was hiding behind, so when the man came from the shadows, Pearce had time to remember and think all of this, but his body's reaction lagged behind a crucial instant.

The man gripped his wrist and slammed it back into the glass wall, broke his hold on the gun and it fell clattering to the floor. Pearce managed a half-step aside, an awkward move, even if he'd had space to do it, and froze when the barrel of a gun pressed into the soft flesh under his jaw.

In the stillness that followed, Pearce's gaze connected with the other man's, recognised not only him — Carl Herrick — but also the look in his eyes and the stony set of his face. Herrick was no stranger to violence, but unlike many of that predilection, Pearce was fairly sure Herrick had been professionally trained at taxpayer's expense. Herrick wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger and never waste another thought on it afterward.

Pearce relaxed his body just slightly, enough to let Herrick know he didn't have to expect any immediate resistance. It allowed his spiked breathing and heartbeat to return to normal, gave him a chance to survey the scene. The earpiece was still in his ear, albeit a little out of place. Mia said nothing, she probably hadn't noticed something was wrong yet.

While she remained oblivious and Pearce returned Herrick's gaze steadily, the spiral staircase complained quietly as several people filed into the room. Most with Taurus security gear, some with the more casual clothes of Club enforcers and then the elegantly swaggering person of Kenneth Quinn.

"Now that was easy," he said, waved a hand airily. "If I'd known, I'm sure we could've arranged it sooner."

They'd _tried, _though, more than once. If it'd been _easy, _it'd have worked much sooner. But while that truth might soothe his ego, it helped little, now that he had sprung the trap.

_"What the…?" _Mia said in his ear, full of confusion and dawning realisation. _"Shit," _she concluded a moment later.

Kenneth Quinn narrowed his eyes, "What's your problem with my family anyway?" he asked. "My father, my brother, you abduct my wife. You disrupt my business at every turn. Can't you live and let live a little?"

Pearce trailed his gaze away from Herrick with slow deliberation, focussed on Kenneth Quinn, but didn't answer, it was just rhetoric.

"Well," Kenneth Quinn said. "It didn't have to come to this, you know, but you brought it on yourself. All that time when you were running around Chicago as if you owned it? Well, it's really not yours. It's always belonged to the South Club. It's time we got rid the vermin. But I want you to know, you never mattered all that much anyway."

He made a dismissive gesture. "You were just a minor annoyance."

Turning to go, he said to his men, "Take him to the basement to shoot him, I don't want the mess in my bedroom."

He went down the stairs and some of his security followed him, leaving five men behind, in addition to Herrick.

Herrick eased the pressure of the gun, but didn't take it away completely.

"Are you going to make it difficult?" he asked. He did his best to keep his voice neutral, but a sneer crept in behind it.

Pearce blinked his attention back to him and let the growing tension wrap around him, waited it out as the moment neared its tipping point.

"Do you want me to?" Pearce asked, felt the pressure of the gun against his throat as he spoke, let it force his voice into a growl of his own. "It's no fun if they don't fight back, is it?" he added. "How'd they know you're better then them?"

He raised his voice a little, he wanted the others to hear him, too. Herrick might think this was between them, it worked for his internal narrative, but Pearce was performing for a larger audience.

"Talk tall all you like," Pearce continued. "But you all run scared of me."

He leaned forward, into the gun, the faintest of movement so as not to provoke Herrick's trigger finger.

"Are _you_ scared of me?"

Herrick's expression darkened subtly, invisible to the men behind him, but obvious to Pearce. Herrick suspected some kind of trick, he knew he had the upper hand right now and letting go of it was an obviously stupid choice. But he was running the muscle for Heather — and now for Kenneth Quinn — ripe with macho culture and meaningless posturing. Herrick would have to defend his place in the hierarchy at every step, make sure all the young contenders knew why he was in charge. Levelling the challenge at him, in this way, in front of his men, meant he'd seem weak and cowardly if he backed down and pocketed the safe win.

Reluctantly, Herrick folded his finger away from the trigger and stepped back, lowered the gun only halfway to the floor. Keeping his gaze on Pearce, he took a step to the side and kicked Pearce's gun in the direction of his men. One of them went to pick it up and when he straightened, Herrick was holding his own gun out to him.

Tilting his head towards his men, Herrick said, "Keep out of it."

Pearce bared his teeth, settled a leg against the wall behind and launched himself at Herrick, weaving an element of of surprise out of thin air.

Herrick's reaction was immediate, but he didn't have enough time to bring up his guard all the way and Pearce landed a punch against the side of his jaw with the full weight of his body behind it. Pearce felt it all the way into his shoulder when they connected, but while Herrick staggered, he didn't go down.

Herrick landed several blows to Pearce's face, then a hard quick jab to his side before he could muster a defence and deflected a blow from the left. Fighting through the daze, Pearce caught Herrick's fist, used the leverage and stepped into Herrick's knee for the satisfying hiss of pain from his opponent. Twisting away to keep on his feet, Herrick threw himself around, arm raised and elbow ready to smash into Pearce's sternum. Pearce dropped back, took the blow into the shoulder instead, where it failed to do much damage, but at the same time, Herrick smashed his left fist into the side of Pearce's face, knocking him back.

Herrick didn't give him a chance to recover from the momentary disorientation, got hold of his arms and turned them both, hooked his feet with Pearce's and toppled him over. Pearce heard himself snarl like an animal when the world tilted away.

Gracelessly, Pearce rolled away, on all fours and back on his feet, stumbling through a paper screen, gaining a few inches of breathing space while Herrick ripped the piece of furniture out of his way.

Taking on Herrick had always been a risky move. He could have taken his chances on the way to the basement. The spiral staircase was the most promising choke-point, but he couldn't be sure to take Herrick down fast enough, even if he took him by surprise. This way, at least, the others weren't going to interfere. Pearce only hoped he was in any shape to handle them when it was over.

Keeping low, Pearce let Herrick come to him, taking the moment to watch the man's body language and anticipate the direction of his attack. Despite his bulk, Herrick was fast and despite running with thugs now, he was precise. No sloppiness in the way he came for him, no hesitation and a willingness to work through pain.

He ducked past Pearce's defence and got a decent hold on him, grunted when Pearce punched his elbow in his side, but Herrick's grip was iron, trying to manoeuvre Pearce so he could run him into the wall. Pearce kicked out, hit the same knee again and Herrick stumbled for a second. Pearce used the moment, got hold of the man's hand and held on, twisted out of his grip and Herrick snarled when the move nearly disjointed his shoulder. Pulling up, Pearce snapped his elbow back again, caught Herrick in the nose and a second time at the side of his head, he followed up by yanking his knee up and into Herrick's groin, doubling him over. Every instinct in Pearce screamed for him to use the moment and finish Herrick there and then. But not while the others were still watching.

Herrick tried to draw back for a breather of his own, Pearce kept the pressure on, swiped his feet away from under him. Instead of letting him fall, though, Pearce picked him up by the back of the neck and a hold on his shoulder. Threw him forward and into the glass door leading to the roof deck. It didn't break under the impact, but the door jarred out of its lock, swinging open lazily and letting in a gust of damp, cool air.

Pearce stole a quick look at Herrick's men. They had scattered around the room, keeping out of the way while the fight was still going. Their postures were tense, but they were keeping still for now.

By then, Herrick had worked through the pain, spat a curse as he pulled himself up. Pearce aimed a kick at his stomach, but Herrick caught his boot and twisted hard, tore Pearce from his feet. He fell into the window, hit his shoulder on the doorway as he caught himself. He snapped his hand forward, got hold of the door and crashed it into Herrick's face. This time, the glass shattered, leaving numerous tiny, bleeding cuts in Herrick's face.

Herrick jumped forward, chopped Pearce arm out of the way and got a grip on his throat, smashed him back into the doorway on an outstretched arm.

Pearce hacked his arm down on Herrick's, loosened the grip and ducked down past him, making for the roof deck. Herrick had moved with him, though, tripped him and got a hold of his shoulder. It wasn't a good grip, so Herrick just shoved him forward with full force and into the cast iron table and chairs there. Pearce got hold of the edge of the table, pulled himself up and kicked his leg back, got Herrick on the chest with his heel. Pearce vaulted over the table, picked up one of the metal chair's as he landed and came back up, brought it around just in time to crash it into Herrick full force, but Herrick snapped a hand up, diverted the blow with a grip on the chair leg and a hard yank to the side.

The others hadn't followed outside yet.

Herrick had never got around to pat him down for weapons and while his gun was well out of reach and his phone useless inside the house, he still had the baton.

Using the second Herrick tangled with the chair, Pearce drew the baton from his pocket, snapped it open with a move familiar and effortless. He dove forward just as Herrick did, but the length of steel made all the difference as Pearce snapped it down into the side of Herrick's leg, then into his side and then in a small circle up and against his arms. Instinctively, Herrick lunged for the baton to keep it away from his face. Pearce turned it in his hand and crushed the handle into Herrick's temple.

Herrick folded sideways, found the table for support, but Pearce stepped in close, settled a hand on top of his head and yanked it back, exposing his throat.

Herrick's eyes were wide open, gaze connecting with Pearce's for a endless second, realisation of what was coming next blowing his pupils wide, arms coming up, but ineffectively against the downward stroke of the baton against his throat.

Gargling wetly, Herrick went limp, larynx fractured.

"The fuck…?!" someone yelled.

Pearce dropped like a stone behind the bulk of Herrick's aimlessly twitching body and kept drawing backward in the time it took the others to file out to the deck and draw their guns.

The first shot hissed past his head, far too close for comfort and there was no good cover anywhere on the deck. Just a few heavy planters surrounding a hot tub, covered by a sheet of plastic in the winter. Looking around, Pearce mapped the only way he could go. Jumping up, he got the back edge of the hot tub, launched himself forward and scaled the roof. With a flat decline, he could walk comfortably, but it wasn't bulletproof and standing up made him a good target, even in the shadow.

He ran along the length of the roof, felt bullets bite through the eaves at his heels. He spotted only three men out on the deck, the others must be hanging back inside. With no time to hesitate, to think about how small his time frame was, Pearce dropped back down close to the three men, behind the backs of two of them, while the third had advanced towards where Herrick still lay. Whether he was alive or already dead, Pearce neither knew nor cared.

Pearce rolled back to his feet, swung the baton into the nearest man's back and when he arched with the blow, Pearce came up behind him, caught the man's gun from his fingers. A shot went clean through the man's side before Pearce could shove him aside and the bullet singed Pearce's sleeve.

He raised the gun and fired down the deck at the other two, got one in the chest. The second bullet sheered past the second man's throat, cut it wide open.

Pearce dropped the human shield, it was mostly useless and only hindered him. Without wasting time on aiming, Pearce fired into the bedroom in a wide circle, forcing the remaining two men to take cover.

Counting off the bullets, when he fired the last two, he took a running start, swiped a second gun from the ground as he went. In the moment it took the others to realise he'd stopped firing, he had oriented themselves, brought his gun back up and fired twice more, dropping them.

The sudden silence thundered in his ears, made his own breathing seem ridiculously loud and for a moment he just stood in the centre of the room, detached from the carnage strewn around him.

His jaw ached, from the blows he'd taken, but mostly from how tightly he clenched his teeth, still bared from the fight. The razor-edge of his sense picked up a faint sound and he remembered he'd lost his earpiece at some point he couldn't recall. He couldn't spot it, so he simply pulled out his phone.

"Mia," he said, forced his voice into a semblance of normalcy.

_"Oh god, Pearce," _she exclaimed. _"I don't know how it happened! I swear I'll figure it out! I… Are you all right?"_

"I know how it happened," he said darkly.

_"Shit," _Mia said. _"Shit, shit." _

He took a steadying breath, snapped the baton closed and put it away. Dropping the gun, he went to where his own was lying on the floor.

"Where's Kenneth?" he asked.

_"You're still going after him?" _

"He thinks I'm dead," Pearce pointed out. The house felt deserted now, unlike when he'd come, but he still took a moment to listen before he went down the stairs. He was in no mood for more nasty surprises.

_"I…" _Mia started and sounded like she was deflating. _"Are you pissed with me?" _

"Where's Kenneth?" Pearce repeated, a little sharper.

It took an additional moment until Mia said, _"He left after his little speech to you. Soon after, the cameras in your area stopped backing up their footage. I'm only getting a live feed and I think some of the cameras are out completely." _

Pearce thought about it. The cameras had a maintenance mode where they'd not record. He used it sometimes as a low-impact way to hide his movement.

_"Something else is going on, isn't it?" _Mia asked in a tone of voice like she suspected he'd blame her for that, too, whatever it turned out to be.

"I don't know," he said. He'd reached the ground floor and found his car was still there. The plan would've been to sink him and the car in the Chicago river and forget the vigilante had ever existed.

An alert announced he'd received a message.

"Wait," he told Mia and took the phone down to check. The message said: _(3542 N Belarbre Ave) _

The address wasn't far away. Making up his mind, Pearce got back into his car. When he was moving, he said, "Mia?"

_"Shit, I'm sorry Pearce…" _

"Stand by, maybe I'll still need you," he said and hung up without giving her a chance to argue.

It didn't take long until he turned into Belarbre. A gentle slope let upward, hid the address from sight. There was no traffic, it was a wealthy area in the middle of the night, far from the bustle of the city so it was, perhaps, no surprise that the car that'd hit a streetlight hadn't attracted attention yet, especially if ctOS wasn't fully operational.

A modern station wagon had hit a lamppost and knocked it askew. A thin line of smoke trailed upward from the front, but nothing else moved. The lamp had failed due to the impact. Pearce parked a little distance away and got out, surveyed the scene and listened in the night for any sign of new problems, but he already had his suspicions of what to expect.

Satisfied, he tucked his hands into the pockets of his coat and strode across the street, approached the car. From behind, it looked like an accident. Some drunk driver losing control of their vehicle, getting knocked unconscious with the impact. Without any visible tyre-tracks, it was impossible to gauge the speed the car had been going at. Fairly fast, given the model.

Pearce circled the car and as he got closer, the blood sprayed on the inside of the windows became visible. He stopped by the front fender, regarded the damage for what it truly was. The windshield was covered in a million tiny cracks, rendering it almost intransparent. On head height, two bullet holes punctured the windshield, one for each passenger. The window on the driver's side had fallen out, opened the view on the two occupants. A bullet had hit the driver right between the eyes, killing him instantly. A second bullet had punched through Kenneth Quinn's right eye.

Smiling a little, Pearce pulled out his phone again, scrolled through the apps until he found what he'd been looking for, then texted back: _(Thanks Jordi)_

* * *

On the drive back to the Loop, Pearce felt the way the adrenaline drained from his body with each new point of pain it revealed. His face was sore, it felt hot where the bruises formed and a leaden weight threatened to settle on his neck. He pushed it aside, straightened in his seat to counteract the encroaching tiredness. He acceralted the car and a little rush came flooding back.

He called Mia.

She seemed to have calmed down by then, but markedly less upbeat than usual.

_"I think I know what happened," _she said. _"They must've known we were coming. They were running their own video on a loop long before I ever got in and they switched it back to live using the remote's privacy setting. That way, I saw you in the cameras, but everything else was fake. That's why it lagged."_

"Yeah," Pearce confirmed without adding anything.

_"But how did they know?"_

"Iain," Pearce guessed. "Trying to get back into the Club's good graces. I should've checked him."

Mia paused, then said, _"I couldn't find Kenneth Quinn in the live feeds, but I'm sure he'll crop back up. Do you think it'll be hard to take him out now?"_

The solidity of the car and the powerful sound of the engine felt different now than it had before and the car seemed to resist him more.

Perhaps he was just tired.

"Kenneth Quinn is dead," he answered.

_"What? How did you find him?" _

"I didn't."

Mia said nothing, clearly trying to process the information. Pearce interrupted her line of thought and said, "Mia, you need to go home…"

_"But I…" _

"… and get some sleep."

_"But…" _

"It's fine, it worked," he stated, but realised he failed to put much warmth in his tone. "Consider it a learning experience, alright?"

Mia took a deep breath, almost as if she was about to argue. Instead, she said, _"Okay, I hear you. So… where are you heading?" _

"Shower and sleep."

_"Uh, Heather spoke up," _Mia said. _"She wants to know what happened. And she really wants a drink. What do I tell her?" _

He thought about it, longer than strictly necessary, because he found the hum of the engine and the speed of the car remarkably comforting. Iain was the most likely leak, but he hadn't known any details, certainly not enough to for Kenneth Quinn's nearly flawless trap. There were still missing pieces in this, more than there should be.

"I'll take care of her," he finally answered. "Just go home."

* * *

_End of _Femme Fatale – Part 5_


	57. Femme Fatale - Part 6

**Warning: **Reader Discretion Advised

**General Note:** I hate it when specific warnings take the shape of spoilers. You want to know what happens, go and fucking read it. However, I'm aware that some people do not wish to read certain things and it seems unnecessarily callow to forego warnings entirely. Therefore, _**Reader Discretion Advised**_ is catch-all for the nasty things that'd happen. This includes, among others, torture and gore, disembowelment, dismemberment, rape and every other non-consensual thing ever, character death, cannibalism in varying degrees of explicitness. It's a cover-my-arse warning, too, because I usually have no idea how to rate my own stuff. (Sex has no place on that list and I'll clench my teeth and keep warning you prudes whenever it happens.)

**Author's Note: **In a minor forth wall breach, when I tried to figure out whether it was 'wine shop' or 'wine store', google offered me the relevant places in Chicago. Yes, Big Brother is watching, _I know. _

**Sorry** about the length of this thing, I have no idea why I couldn't get to the point (even the damned author's notes are endless). I know it leaves a few threads hanging, but I believe it's quite clear what'll happen next.

**Recap/Recurring Character: **Poppy and Vincent Fisher's story can be found in Loose Ends.

* * *

**_Femme Fatale – Part 6**

* * *

Heather had been browsing channels on the television for hours. Without access to the internet – no phones, no computers – the TV was her only source of information. She doubted anything of Pearce's operation would've leaked. If Kenneth Quinn died, alleged mob boss of the Chicago South Club, the DA and the police would sit on it for as long as they could. There would not be anything about any of it on the television tonight, she knew that. Yet, it was all she had to keep her company in her enforced passivity.

The hacker girl had been evasive and short when they'd spoken, Heather had already made an uneasy peace with remaining in the dark for at least another day. She hadn't expected Pearce.

Curled up on the couch with an energy drink, she only turned her head to watch him walk in after the metallic hiss of the lock had alerted her.

He looked battered, bruises in his face and a subtle heaviness in his movement she hadn't seem him exhibit before. Seeing him made a lump form in her throat, unexpected and restricting, something unseen snapped in her thoughts and she didn't know if it was a good or bad feeling. If he was here, then Kenneth must be dead, there was no other way it could've gone.

He stopped, looked back at her and Heather slipped to her feet, walked to face him. Closer now, the shadow of his cap revealed the reflected glow of his eyes, rendering his gaze penetrating and intense in his silence.

Wordlessly, he held out the paper bag he held in his hand. For a moment, she preferred to be transfixed by his gaze, but then trailed her attention down to the bag, spotted the logo of some wine store on it. When she took the bag from his hands, it was heavy, the weight of two bottles and their packaging.

She looked up at him, smiled thinly and said, "You're welcome to some of my fresh bandages."

He surprised her when a smile lit his features, quick like distant lightning. He didn't answer, but walked past her, peeled off his coat and dropped it over the back of a couch as he went towards the bathroom.

She took the bag to the kitchenette, pulled out the bottles and raised an appreciative eyebrow as she read the labels. It was a bottle of imported vodka, labelled only in Cyrillic and she didn't recognise the brand. The other bottle was a Pinot noir from Oregon, too excellent to just knock back before it had a chance to breathe, but the wine appealed much more to her.

Uncorking the bottle of red with her damaged hand wasn't easy, sending pulsing pain up her arm as she applied some force. She winced, then composed herself, listened for a moment to Pearce in the bathroom.

By the time Pearce returned, she had found two wine glasses in the sparsely outfitted kitchen. She turned and held a glass out to him.

He'd taken off his cap and the sweater, leaving him in white T-shirt, but a flew flecks of dried blood were still visible on his trousers. He'd washed his hands and face and combed his hair back haphazardly with his fingers. His eyes were still as bright as before, though. Perhaps they always were and she just hadn't noticed.

He didn't reach for the glass.

"Please," she said quietly. "Tell me about Kenneth."

His expression barely softened, but he nodded and took the glass. He walked to the couch and after a moment's hesitation, she took the wine bottle and followed, selecting her seat carefully across from him.

"You have good taste," she remarked, lifting her glass in salute before she drank. The wine was still too cold to be truly good, but at least it had some burn and texture in it, a welcome change and equally welcome, if fleeting, distraction from the situation she found herself in.

He said nothing, but returned her gesture before he drank.

Despite herself, she didn't want to break this silence, finding herself chasing memories she hadn't looked at in a long time. She and Kenneth had grown apart in the last few years, more a flawless business relationship than a marriage, but if she told herself that it had always been about ambition, she'd just be lying.

"So, he's dead," she finally said, surprised by the way the word felt on her tongue.

"Took a bullet to the head," Pearce said. "Carl Herrick and some of his men are also dead."

"Herrick?" she asked and considered whether she should say anything more. In the end, she decided she'd gone too far already and if Herrick was dead, it didn't matter anymore anyway. "You got lucky, then."

"Yeah," he said with a mirthless chuckle. "Felt like it."

She frowned a little, "I don't know what you mean, but Herrick would've become a power of his own, especially in a vacuum without Kenneth or me. He's brought in a lot of his old army buddies, but I always thought they were more loyal to him than to the Club."

"Where will they stand?"

"His army buddies? With us, don't expect them to turn tail, but they are mostly followers, not leaders."

Pearce thought for a moment, took a sip, then said, "Who is?"

Heather laughed and shook her head, "Some other time," she said and drank.

Pearce, she realised, had a knack for silence, for letting it be choking and tense or comfortable and peaceful instead. This was something in-between the two extremes, but it suited them both. For a moment, she almost forgot why she was here at all, adrift inside her own mind.

She caught herself, the sigh escaped her only half, nothing more than a gesture. She said, "Kenneth wasn't all bad, you know."

Pearce didn't answer, only looked at her over the rim of his glass, his expression unreadable. His knuckles were bruised, skin pulled taunt to his bones, holding the glass.

"I don't have to tell you my history, I guess you dug up parts I've long forgotten," she continued and putting any bitterness into her voice seemed too much effort. "I worked as a shop assistant at a jeweller's shop. I didn't graduate high school, but I'm not stupid and my face has good bone structure. The Club bought the shop from the owner's widower. It's when I first met Kenneth."

She had to smile a little at the memory. "You called him a trust-fund kid, others would be less kind. But with me, he was almost shy. I guess it's different, when the feeling is real. When it's not just… you know, lust and ownership."

She fell silent, realising her gaze had drifted away from him, chasing after intangible memories in mid-air. When she looked back at Pearce, she found he hadn't moved other than lower the glass.

"And then suddenly you're in the upper echelons of the Chicago South Club."

She made a dismissive gesture. "You don't have to agree, but I believe that certain things will always happen. There'll always be bankers ripping off poor pensioners, there'll always be twelve-year-olds dead in a drive-by. There'll always be dealers, corrupted cops and incompetent politicians. If it's not me doing these things, it'd just be someone else. And I wanted it to be me, judge me all you like for it."

"If Kenneth hadn't loved you," Pearce said. "You could've been sold at an auction. Niall did to an ex-girlfriend."

"I remember her," she said. "But she was a dumb bitch. After she'd broken up with Niall, she tried to blackmail him. What was he supposed to do?"

Pearce's expression darkened and Heather shook her head, distancing herself from what she'd said.

"If things had been different, yes," she echoed the sentiment and fixed him sharply. She didn't say that she wouldn't have been as stupid as Niall's ex, the point seemed entirely moot. "If things had been different, maybe it'd have been you organising the auction. The point is, things aren't different. I decided what my life was going to be like, I threw my lot in with the Quinns. Good and evil are just stories for children."

"There's plenty of evil."

She tilted her head, lightly, said, "There's you adding to it."

"Well," he grunted. "If not me, than just someone else, right?"

She had to laugh a little, "Touché."

They emptied their glasses without saying anything more.

Heather tapped her glass against her lower lip, then, abruptly, shook herself from her detachment. She slipped to the edge of the couch and reached for the bottle, tilted it a little towards him in question. He held out the glass across the table between them, settled back again with his refill and took a long gulp.

After a while, she said, "Would you be offended if I asked you what your price was?"

Pearce took another sip of wine before he answered. When he finally spoke, his tone was dark, making the empty air between them shiver with tension.

"Not offended," he said eventually and fell silent again.

She felt a smile tucking at the corners of her mouth and asked, "What's your price?"

To her surprise, Pearce seemed to consider the question rather than just brush it aside. Instead, he leaned forward, hung an arm over his knee and took a deep breath.

"Unmake the last six years," he said.

She only nodded, she hadn't expected anything less than an impossible demand from him.

He took another deep breath, rubbed his eye as he sat back up and blinked a few more times as he leaned back, squared his shoulders and took another sip. She drank, too, watching him.

"It doesn't matter," he said slowly.

"I'm pretty sure it does."

"Not for you," he said, in a tone that warned her away from pressing the point.

"No, I suppose not," she said.

She refilled their glasses a second time, savouring the wine now that it had reached room temperature. In the quiet, she caught Pearce letting his eyes fall closed until he seemed to sense her attention and snapped them open again.

"You know, it's a good trick," she said as if the thought had just occurred to her, when in truth, she had had too much time to ponder it. "Being this man of mystery. I'm long past trying to write you and your role in Chicago off. You scoff at me and the Club and all of us, but you yourself are a power here, too."

"It's not the same," he warned, made simultaneously better and worse by the slow smirk that accompanied his answer.

She just waved her hand in dismissal. "That's not the point. Everything about you is an unknown. I've looked you up online, like _everyone_ in this town has done. And I thought 'how clever'. Someone else with your skill-set, they would've been tempted to erase themselves from the system." She pointed at him with her glass. "But _you_, you didn't, you knew it wouldn't last. Instead, the net is full of false information. So much of it, no one knows anymore what the truth is."

He'd sunk a little into the couch, lifted his head when she stopped speaking and took a second longer until he really seemed to focus on her.

"Are you coming on to me?"

"I try not to make the same mistake twice," she laughed. "But it must be hard to keep track of all that. Do you sometimes forget what you really are?"

He chuckled. The glass in his hand had started to tip to the side, but he noticed just in time and sat up too quickly, grunted in irritation. A slow frown settled on his face.

"No," he said seriously, then started to chuckle. "Actually, it's kind of fun."

With the glass against her lips, Heather joined in after a moment.

"I'm…uh," he started and stopped, frowned again when he seemed to lose the thread. He sat up and blinked, rubbed his hand down his face.

She wasn't sure if it was a prompt or not, so she kept her silence, returned his smile and tracked his movement. He set the glass down on the table and got up, took two steps until he was past the couch, then tripped and had to steady himself with a grip to the back of the couch. It took only a moment, but he crossed the space to his desk with a certain caution.

Heather felt herself tense, wondered if he would notice her changed posture. He didn't turn on the computers, though, he crouched down by the desk, took something from a drawer she couldn't see. It took a little effort to pull himself back to his feet, but he covered for it by leaning against the desk in a decent show of nonchalance.

"Perhaps you should stay here tonight," she offered mildly and added with a smile. "I promise your virtue is safe."

"Hmm."

She watched him across the room, saw the effort it took him to appear composed, but something burning was filling his gaze.

"What if I wanted it unsafe?"

Startled, despite herself, she sat up, about to get to her feet, but then thought better of it. She lowered her glass, tilted her head back a little. Unbidden, the lump in her throat returned, albeit for an entirely different reason.

"You'll have to come a little closer for that," she said, tone carefully neutral.

Pearce remained leaned into the desk for a long moment, gathering himself before he pushed himself to his feet. He'd learned from his earlier stumble and set his feet much more carefully as he walked back, a slow casualness masking his unsteadiness. It should make him appear much more harmless than normal, but instead there was an accidental, predatory grace in his movement as he focussed on the functioning of each individual muscle.

She shifted back a little, still unsure if she should've got up as he approached, because he was towering, stepping in between the couch and the table and she had to drop her head back to look up to him. A thin sheen of sweat was on his forehead and his expression had turned from smiling to tense.

He settled a knee on the couch beside her, mindful of his unreliable sense of balance. Everything about him was intense, but slowed down with the effort of keeping his gaze pinned on her.

She never had a chance to deflect him when he snapped his hand forward, folded steely fingers around her throat, pulled her up an inch by that grip alone, then crushed her down into the couch. Sharp pain cut from her stomach all the way to her throat as the injury in her side overstrained, it wrung a strangled cry from her and paralysed her until the rush of adrenaline numbed the pain.

She punched for him blindly, hit his shoulder with her glass, it knocked out of her hand without doing much damage.

He didn't let up either, keeping her down with his weight rather than strength. Getting light-headed from lack of oxygen, her efforts weren't putting a dent in him, even though he was panting hard, leaned in over her with his weight not only to keep her pinned, but because his body wasn't following orders. Heaving, he let up for only a moment as he turned her around, crushed her face into the upholstery and laid his forearm over her neck.

"You spiked my drink," he hissed by her ear.

She immediately renewed her struggle, punched back with her elbow and felt him groan when she hit a fresh bruise, but it didn't make him let up. He twisted her caught hand and something cold and hard pressed against her wrist, she recognised it as a handcuff.

"Fuck you," she snarled, flailing her arm to keep it out of his reach. His fingers dug into the cuts at the palm of her hand, painful even through the bandage and he used the chance to close the cuffs. She felt the slight tremble in his arm across her neck, the way he fumbled for her other hand, he was losing the coordination to fight. She hacked her elbow back again, snapped her handcuffed hand from his grip. She shoved her hips up to the side and Pearce overbalanced on the edge of the couch. He tried to hold on to her, pulling her down, but she freed her legs and kicked up, caught him somewhere on the thigh with her heel.

She scrambled up, caught the back of the couch and pulled herself over. He made no attempt to follow. She circled the couch at a safe distance. Muttering a mangled curse, Pearce rolled to all fours, but didn't get back to his feet.

She followed the direction of his gaze and swiftly crossed forward, snatched his coat from the back of the couch before he could even try to go for it.

She watched him trying to stand, lose his grip andrealise he wasn't getting far. He'd made it past the couch, but the trembling of his shoulders revealed that he was losing the fight against the drug. He made a low, snarling sound in his throat, something between pain and anger. He managed to prop himself up against the side of the couch. In another attempt to push himself up, he pulled a knee in, but he slipped and was still after that.

Heather allowed herself to relax just a little, but she still kept away. Even when she wasn't underestimating him, he had still almost got the jump on her. Now she was thoroughly out of second chances with him, she saw it in his eyes even as he struggled to focus. She resolved not to let her guard down until she knew he was six feet under.

"Do you know what this is?" she asked, holding up the small packet. She wasn't sure if he was still coherent enough to understand. He'd let his head roll back to look at her. He had stopped trying to get up, but his gaze still tracked her as she circled him.

"Iain had it in his pocket when you brought him here," she continued. "You thought it was a condom."

She tore the packet open, dropped the wrapping carelessly, held the patch between pointed fingers and unfolded it until it was the size of a nicotine patch.

"We used to ink our girl with tracking devices that were developed by Blume, but this was our own invention. It's less permanent than a tattoo, but it works much the same. It activates when it touches skin."

She gave him no warning, stepped in close and yanked the collar of his shirt aside and slapped the patch against the side of his neck. She retreated immediately, before he had the chance to lung for her. Tension ran the length of his body, but it was the only indication he might even have done that.

He raised a hand, padded his neck, digging his nails in, but the patch had already transferred the trackers into his skin. After a few moments, he let his arm drop again. His eyes fluttered closed, opened again.

"I'd explain how it all fits together," Heather said. She strode back to the couch, picked up the bottle from where it lay on its side and held it up to the light to see how much had survived. The loose end of the handcuff hit the glass with a low sound.

"But you wouldn't remember anyway."

There was enough wine left to fill half a glass. She looked up at the nearest camera. She had no way to tell whether someone was watching or not, whether the hacker was already sending help, but Iain must have a pretty good idea of where she was and had people standing by. It was good enough for her.

She drank the rest of the wine while she waited.

* * *

Someone was punching him in the face, but it took a while until it worked itself to the top of his internal list of priorities. His world was swimming, a mess of throbbing headaches and crippling nausea. His limbs felt like they'd been detached at some point, leaving them numb and unresponsive. In that chaos, he was still chasing a sense of self and memories beyond flashes of sensory experience — the smell of exhaust fumes, the taste of duct tape — and somewhere, at the back of all of this, a reason for rage.

Someone hit him again and the skin over his cheekbone split open wetly. He turned his head slowly, effort like pushing through water. He cracked open his eyes, already anticipating the sting of bright lights, but it still stabbed him all the way to the back of his skull, wringing a hoarse moan from him. It sounded distant and pathetic in his own ears.

"Give him a moment," a female voice said and his thoughts sparked brightly, dragging him back from the shallow water he'd been drowning in. A shadow was withdrawn from over him and the brightness shot right through his eyelids again, keeping him skewered.

"Fucker broke my nose," someone complained somewhere over and to the right of him.

"I told you to be careful," Heather Quinn said unimpressed. "I had to guess the dosage and it was a little too low to take him under completely."

She moved as she spoke, came closer to him until a shadow draped itself over his face again.

"On the upside, we can start work sooner."

Her hands dropped to his shoulders, too warm and heavy to stop himself from tensing under her grip. He blinked his eyes open reluctantly, only to look up into Heather's sharp blue eyes. The room behind her came into focus a little slower, corner of a ceiling and white walls, no visible decoration in the part he could see. His head rested on two metal bars, pressing uncomfortably into his skull no matter how he turned it.

It turned out, he was lying on what appeared to be a dental chair that had been stripped of any upholstery, leaving only a bare skeleton behind. Metal cuffs held his arms and feet, he didn't pull on them to test their strength, not while he was under so much scrutiny, but he didn't have high hopes anyway.

Heather smiled a little and it wasn't quite the cold expression he expected from her.

"How much do you remember?"

He returned her gaze, but then let it slip away to survey the rest of the room, spotted the man with the swollen nose off to the side and two others he vaguely recognised as Club muscle. Further to the back of the room was a simple table and a few chairs, where a woman sat behind a laptop screen. She seemed vaguely familiar, too, but Pearce couldn't place her immediately. Iain stood behind her shoulder, talking quietly. He glanced up briefly, but refused to make eye-contact with Pearce by pretending to watch the screen.

With his arms crossed over his chest, Vincent Fisher sat on the desk, looked back at Pearce and Heather with a smug little smile playing on his lips.

"I should've left you alone," Pearce said in answer to Heather's question, taking his gaze back to her. The nausea was abating somewhat, but the headache remained lodged behind his eyebrows like an iron bar.

Heather laughed, started and stopped just as abruptly.

"You haven't put it all together, have you?" she asked.

He bared his teeth, it was the best imitation of a smile he had. "You drugged me somehow. I guess Iain smuggled it in."

Her smile stayed. "Not that," she said. "Well, not _just _that." She took her hands from his shoulder and straightened away from him. "How you got here, not just the drugs." She shrugged. "But you are right about them. But there's a part you've misunderstood from the beginning, from before you put Ramsey on my case."

"Who's the mole?" he asked.

"That's the wrong question," she said, shaking her head as she walked away. "I'll let you work it out on your own, I think you'll enjoy it more."

She paused, then said, "However, you're not going to enjoy what's coming too much. Believe it or not, I'm not a great fan of torture."

Pearce pulled on the handcuffs experimentally, but he wasn't sure if his muscles were just sluggish to respond or if the chair and his bindings were so tough.

"But you leave me no other options. I can't manipulate you, I can't buy you, I can't seduce you, I can't blackmail or threaten you," Heather continued.

She spread out her arms, a mockery of regret and said, "So, I'm going to destroy you."

"What do you want?"

She shook her head, "Oh no, you'll have to pretend to break much later, if you want it to be believable."

Pearce lifted his head, tried to find a slightly more comfortable spot on the metal. "You want access to my system," he stated. "What's it to you?"

She laughed again, "What's it _not _to me. Lucky had a treasure trove of secrets, he had the mayor and Blume in his pocket and the gangs were jumping when he called. No one would mess with him, on both sides of the law. You ruined all that, I think it's only fair you made up for it."

While she'd talked, Fisher had got to his feet and came up behind Heather. She glanced at him and said, "I'm told you're old acquaintances."

She made a gesture toward the woman behind the laptop. "And that's Denise S—"

"Mrs Quinn," the woman interrupted and cleared her throat when Heather arched her brows and looked at her in mild surprise.

"I…" Denise said, took a breath and seemed to resolve something for herself. "I'd rather you didn't mention my name."

Pearce snorted and let his head drop. He already knew who she was, he'd stumbled over her while looking into the Quinns' affairs, she was an IT engineer and former DedSec member, ostensibly the social media and community manager for some of the Quinns' shell companies.

"Well," Heather said. "She's here to make sure you don't try to trick us."

Her expression hardened as she returned it to Pearce, but by then his mind had cleared somewhat and he returned her gaze calmly, ignoring Fisher's leer behind her shoulder. It gave her pause, if only for a second. In counterpoint to the stony mask of her face, her voice was sincere in its ruefulness.

"I have no interest in watching," she said, stepped away and Fisher made sure to get out of her way smoothly. She nodded at Fisher, than at Denise. "Just let me know when it's done."

Her heels clicked sharply as she left the room, Iain and the Club soldiers followed her out and the door snapped shut behind her with an echo of finality.

"Mrs Quinn isn't really bone-headed," Fisher said conversationally as he circled Pearce. "But when I said I couldn't really crack you, she wanted to hear nothing of it. Which is bad for me, because she _does _expect results."

He stopped by Pearce's right side and leaned over him. "If you want my opinion, I believe by the time you're willing to talk, you'll be too incoherent to remember your own passwords."

"I don't want your opinion," Pearce said. He doubted he could talk himself out of it with Fisher. The man was too much in love with this game of power, he'd take every opportunity.

"But that's the beauty of it," Fisher chuckled. "You don't get a say in it."

He circled further, stopped on Pearce's other side and said, "How is my beautiful Poppy?"

Pearce arched a meaningful eyebrow, said nothing and pointedly turned his head away from Fisher. If the man wanted to talk his ears off, Pearce wouldn't stop him and, anyway, wasn't in any position to. But Fisher wasn't an idiot, giving him anything at all would only provide him with ammunition. There was no way he could know anything about Donna or her current location, Fisher was just trying to get a rise out of him and like Heather had said, it was too early for that.

From the corner of his eyes, Pearce watched Fisher as he dropped the affable mien. Wasting no more time, he walked past the length of Pearce's prone body until only his shadow served as a reminder of his presence. Pearce heard only the faintest whisper of clothes, but no real warning before Fisher brought the wire down over his throat.

His body went rigid instantly, the cuffs unrelenting on his wrists as he kept trying to bring his arms up and free his throat. Distantly, he knew he should try to relax to conserve oxygen and energy, but his brain bypassed any reasoning, dropped him into survival mode without transition, exposed him to all the stupid, blind, animal responses, which would only make it worse.

Fisher let up just as abruptly as he'd brought the wire down, just before the black spots at the corner of Pearce's vision had a chance to release him from this place. His body slumped back into the hard chair, dry coughs abrading his already sore throat.

Behind him, Fisher said, "Don't worry about any physical reactions, I won't hold it against you."

If he could spare the breath, Pearce would've laughed. Fisher's face swam across his vision briefly, then he withdraw again and immediately tightened the wire.

The wire snagged a little on the bars under his head, making it harder for Fisher to strangle him effectively, but perhaps that wasn't a mistake. Fisher wasn't killing him, the opposite in fact, but his lungs didn't know that.

When Fisher let up this time, the tension ran from Pearce's body like water, out of energy shockingly quickly and his breath only rattled faintly. Fisher pulled the wire away completely — it felt like it came from deep beneath his skin — then traced the furrow with his fingers.

"You'll having matching scars by the time I'm through," Fisher observed. "How romantic."

Forcing through the pain — and the reluctance of doing anything that'd make it worse — Pearce tilted his head to the side and up until he could catch and hold Fisher's gaze.

"How about you shut up?" Pearce rasped.

Fisher chuckled. "Is that bitterness?" he asked. He stepped to the side of Pearce, making it easier to face each other. In a show of indifference, he straightened the wire in his hand and Pearce had to concentrate to keep his attention from drifting to it.

"Has she gotten bored with you?" Fisher inquired sweetly.

Metal screeched loudly and Fisher snapped his head up like a rattlesnake, glowering across the room to where Denise had got to her feet. She was pale, her expression with the laxness of someone who had no strength left to keep up appearance. For a moment, she seemed like she was about to sit back down and pretend nothing had happened, but then she said, "Do I have to be in the room?"

Fisher frowned. "What? You're disappointed? I know it's just a little bit of strangulation and…"

Denise swallowed, gaze darting around the room, looking for escape, but she found some remnant calm to put into her voice. "I have work to do," she said. "I can't just sit around and wait on you like this. I'll be in the office, when you're ready. When… he… is ready."

Fisher quirked an eyebrow. "Your loss," he said shrugging.

Released, Denise snapped the laptop closed and hurried for the door without any other look at Pearce or Fisher. Pearce used the moment to turn his head and catch a glimpse of the outside while the door was open. He was in a side-room of a warehouse, staked boxes on long rows of shelves, but mostly in darkness making the size hard to judge.

The door swung closed behind Denise, but Pearce heard the faintest thud against the wall by the door. Fisher realigned the wire with his throat, painful on the already tender skin, even before he applied any pressure. Pearce felt his body lock up in anticipation, but unlike Fisher, he had had time to spot someone reaching for the door from outside to keep it from falling closed.

After that, the wire bit down again and he seemed to withstand it for a shorter duration each time, nudging him quicker and closer to unconsciousness. From very far away, he heard a low curse and the distinct sound as a gun was cocked.

"Let go right now!"

It took longer, infinitely longer, before the cutting pressure of the wire was lifted. He sensed Fisher taking a step away from him, perhaps raise his arms, but while he let go of the wire, it still sat deeply buried in his skin, making breathing difficult and painful.

Pearce blinked, shook his head to reorient himself and loosen the wire.

"Would you look at that," Fisher remarked. He was walking around the chair, Pearce heard his footsteps and their rhythm was alarming. He forced his head to the side, spotted Mia with her gun raised, gazed fixed on Fisher. A loose scarf only partially obscured her face, allowed him to see her angrily bared teeth. She edged back from Fisher's slow approach and even Pearce wasn't quite sure if Fisher was just trying to make for the door or if he wanted to attack her.

"Who's this cutie?" Fisher asked and had the audacity to glance at Pearce, leaving Mia out of his sight. "Maybe you were the one who got bored, after all."

But it was just a distraction, because he had barely finished speaking before he launched himself at Mia. In the constraints of the small room, he had a good chance to get at her before she could shoot him. He lunged for her wrist and got a grip on her, yanked the gun up where it was harmless to him, but he had no chance to avoid Mia's low stab into his side, pointed fingers right into his kidney. Fisher flinched away and she snapped her arm out of his grip, but before she had a chance to bring it to bear, Fisher smashed an elbow into her side, doubling her over and knocking her into the wall.

Rather than press the advantage, he used the chance to dart through the door and dip into the shadow of the warehouse.

Mia took one step after him, then stopped and turned back to Pearce.

"Holy shit," she muttered. She kept the open door in her sight as she approached him. "How bad is it?" she asked.

Pearce tried and failed to take adeep breath, opened his mouth, then closed it without saying anything, the strain against his vocal cords warned him off, but Mia had got the pointed. Carefully, she lifted the wire from his throat and only then did Pearce allow himself to relax a little.

"I'll survive," he croaked. "Just get me out of this chair. Never liked the dentist."

The remark caused a small, automatic smile to flit across Mia's tense features. She glanced down over the cuffs, then looked around the bare room. "Uh, I hope there are keys somewhere."

"Don't worry," Jordi said from the doorway. Mia snapped the gun up at him, but relaxed when she recognised who it was. Jordi surveyed the room, leaned a shoulder into the doorway and brandished a bolt cutter. "None of the guys had any keys on them, but this'll do, I'm sure. You can fill the rest of the evening by picking them in peace."

Mia blinked in surprise. "Is everyone down?" she asked.

"Well, _no,_" Jordi said. "You can't storm a place like this with one and a half adept people and expect no one to get away, but I'm sure we've got the place to ourselves for a few minutes until they get around to calling backup."

He detached himself from the doorway and stepped into the room, he aimed the bolt cutter's tip at Pearce's face.

"You," he said. "Don't deserve my help. You deleted the hacks."

He bent down and set the bolt cutter on the chains. "I should leave you in your mess, but I thought, I'll give you another chance."

The chain snapped open. Jordi continued, "You're going to share the hacks with me, just so we're clear." He walked around the chair. Cut the chain on the feet. "That's the price for this little intervention."

He put the cutter to the last chain, paused and met Pearce's gaze.

"Deal?" he asked lightly.

Pearce didn't answer immediately, but then nodded. Jordi wasted no more time and cut the last chain.

Finally freed, Pearce sat up, expected the world to spin for a moment and it did. He didn't let it show, though, and slipped to his feet with as much refinement in his movement as he could muster.

Mia forestalled him, slipped out the door in front of him, armed and much better suited to be the vanguard, but before Pearce followed her, he picked up the bolt cutter in case he needed a weapon on the way out.

Denise lay unconscious in the hallway by the door, where Mia or Jordi had left her. Pearce picked up her laptop as he walked past. He didn't expect to find much useful on it, but he preferred to make sure.

They passed by several dead or unconscious Club soldiers, depending on whether they'd crossed Mia's or Jordi's path.

The fresh, cold air and morning light outside hit Pearce like an oncoming train and he almost stumbled, briefly had to use the bolt cutter as a crutch to keep him on his feet. Mia noticed and stopped, hovered uncertainly, about to say something, about to ask if he was alright, but she thankfully thought better of it. She'd only force him to lie about it badly and she knew him well enough to know that.

Jordi's sympathy, if there was any, took the form of a car key, shoved into Pearce's limp hand.

"I'll be in touch about those hacks," Jordi said as he walked away to his car parked across from the car-park in front of the warehouse.

Pearce hit the unlock button and on the other end of the car-park, a car's headlights flared up as it unlocked.

When they reached the car, Pearce dropped the bolt cutter to a loud clank on the asphalt. He padded Mia's back and gave her a very gentle shove to the left side of the car, picked up her hand and put the key in it.

"You drive."

The synthetic seats of the car were unreasonably welcoming, luring him to let his sore body fall into it, while Mia took the car to the road. He felt her glance pass over him for the first few minutes, before she seemed reassured and concentrated on driving.

Though, his body felt leaden, he wasn't willing to let things go. Trying to remember what had happened before he regained consciousness in the warehouse seemed useless. Whatever drug Heather had slipped him, it had taken care of that and he couldn't make much sense of the disjected parts he did remember. What she had said later was far more interesting. If asking about the mole was the wrong question, then what was the correct one?

"Pearce?" Mia asked. "Where are we going? Morrsky?"

"The Fulten River safe-house," he said after a moment.

"Where you kept Heather? I don't know what it is, but 'safe' isn't one of them."

"We have to dismantle it."

"Tonight? Really?"

He just grunted an affirmative and Mia dropped it.

The mole wasn't relevant for Heather. Someone had schemed against her by revealing her location to her would-be assassins and she didn't care about it. He set his elbow against the side of the door and rubbed his forehead with his hand. She wasn't the forgiving type, so it was because the mole didn't matter for another reason.

"How did you know what happened?" he asked, breaking the silence.

"I was already home, but I was still thinking about what happened at Kenneth Quinn's place," she explained. "But I couldn't get you on the phone."

"Plenty of reasons for that."

"Yeah," she agreed. "I didn't think anything was wrong then, but I drove back to the hideout, I thought I could check out my theory. You see, it irks me that I saw the issue with the looped video and didn't realise what it was. There must be a way to detect a recording masquerading as a live feed… Anyway, when I checked in with Heather, she wasn't there. And I still couldn't get you on the phone, so that was a bit much coincidence for me, so I looked at the recordings."

She reached into her pocket and handed him her phone. "And there was this email from Ramsey."

He took the phone from tabbed his way to the dead drop inbox he'd installed for Ramsey.

**From: **_EADA Ramsey_

**Subject: **_Mole_

**Message: **_I have conducted intensive interviews with all members of my team, not only field agents but also all people who work on the case. I had my doubts about the presence of a mole among them from the start and none of these interviews have changed my opinion. I am now convinced none of them have willingly given information to the Club, neither in Heather Quinn's case, nor in any other. _

_However, during the interviews, some members of Quinn's PSD have revealed to me that they would sometimes let her use their cellphones to make calls. It is highly irregular, but after having spoken with Quinn myself extensively, I understand she can be persuasive. I am not entirely sure what to make of this information, but I suspect Heather herself was responsible for the breach in security. _

_In conclusion, while my team was responsible for the attack, it was not because of corruption. It would be prudent at this point, to return Quinn to me. It will be difficult enough to prevent the case from being picked apart, considering the highly dubious circumstances surrounding much of it. _

Pearce lowered the phone and looked out the window, watched the city pass by outside, the familiar shapes of the Loop's high-rise skyline.

"What do you think it means?" Mia asked.

"What's your guess?" he asked quietly.

"I'm not sure," Mia said. "Heather was communicating with someone outside, but she almost got killed in the hit, that can't have been her plan and what I saw from that place? Never in a million years was that fake. Whoever did it really wanted her dead."

"You're right," he said. "The hit was real."

But all the rest had been fake. He had thought Heather's selectiveness in what she revealed to Ramsey was just her attempt to salvage what she could from a bad situation, but if he looked at it from a different angle, then Heather became someone who took on a very risky gamble.

He felt Mia's gaze on him again, but she waited a long time for him to speak without prompting. When he didn't, she said, "How does it all fit together? I don't get it."

He sighed, but the weight remained on his chest. "I have a theory, but it only works if two assumptions are," he said. "One, Iain loves Heather, and two, Heather is smart enough to plan on that scale."

"And then?"

"Then," he spoke with slow deliberation. "Then, Iain never let himself be blackmailed by me, but went to Heather the moment I approached him. Heather decides to use me and Ramsey to destroy all parts of the Chicago South Club who oppose her. But there's no way for Ramsey to get at Kenneth, the way she's set things up for him, nothing would stick, he's always at least one step removed from the dirt."

He paused. The cityscape slowly changed as the left the Loop behind. He observed with detachment as his mood darkened with every part of the puzzle that fell into place. Heather needed _him _to go after Kenneth, she needed to get close to him and with the hit on her safe-house, she had achieved exactly that. He should've noticed the change in her behaviour, but he'd put it down to the shock of nearly being killed and the constant pain from her wounds. She was no hardened fighter, she wasn't familiar with death in this way. It had worked, but only because it played to his own preconception.

The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that Heather had let the hit happen. She had fed Kenneth information through Iain and staked her life on Pearce's ability to interfere fast enough to save. It took more than guts to do it.

"Uh, Pearce?" Mia interrupted.

His voice scratched harshly in his throat, "Heather gambled high and she won high."

It took a moment for Mia to catch up to him, she said, "You think she set it all up? Even the hit?" She thought about it and added, "That's crazy."

"Heather thinks she can control everything. And you said it yourself, she was pissed with Iain."

"And then she got you to go after her husband?" Mia asked. "But she couldn't know it'd work."

Pearce took another breath, going through the events in his mind, groping in the adrenaline-fuelled memories for a thread to follow. He had to laugh, thinking it through now. It was hard not to be impressed by Heather's planning. She'd made a few mistakes along the way, because she was juggling too many variables, but Kenneth and the trap was sheer brilliancy.

"That was a win-win for her," he said. "Either I die, or Kenneth does. If I'd died, she'd have spun it another way. It was all a ruse to take me down, Kenneth isn't stupid enough to pass up the fame. I'm sure she had a plan for getting rid of Ramsey after I was out of the picture."

He could almost hear Mia think in the silence, irritating against the muffling cloud invading his thoughts. He picked his head out of his hand and pushed it into the headrest.

Dismissively, he finished, "But that's just a theory."

* * *

The cameras in the former hideout were off and the rig didn't respond to Mia's phone. Pearce had suspected Heather would try to secure it, but it was equally possible she'd decided to go into hiding the moment she heard he'd got free.

Parked a street away, Pearce used Mia's phone and the ctOS cameras to survey the surrounding of the house. A car was parked a little too close to it and when Pearce ran the plate it turned out to be registered to a known Club member, an associate of Carl Herrick's.

"What are you looking at?" Mia asked. Nudging his arm into a new position, she worked to pick the last handcuff.

He gestured with the phone and she fell silent. Through the camera, Pearce watched as a man left the building and stopped by the door to light himself a cigarette. After a few drags, he pulled out his phone, typed and sent a text. Pearce locked into the phone.

_(Where the hell are you guys? I can't carry this shit alone.)_

It took a few minutes until he received an answer. _(Stay put. Got some problems here. We get to you.) _

The man punched his fist into the doorway out of frustration, then finished his cigarette and went back in.

Pearce logged out of ctOS and handed the phone back. He bent forward and opened the glovebox to find the gun Jordi had left there.

She took it, but her gaze drifted away from his face. She frowned. "What's that on your neck?"

"Huh?"

He flexed his neck, but other than the stiffness he expected, nothing seemed wrong.

"Looks weird, more like a blurry tattoo than a bruise..."

It clicked through his mind, one painful second at a time, leaving him cold to the bone. He took the phone back out of Mia's unresisting fingers and ran a search on the old tracking signal. The phone picked it up immediately. Scrambling the tracker wasn't hard, making it stick was the problem, especially if the Club had upgraded the devices. He clenched his teeth and resolved to take care of it later.

"Not a tattoo," Mia concluded.

"Club used to nano tracking devices to mark their merchandise," he explained, he rubbed his forehead, gathering his thoughts. "Alright, one thing at a time," he said and looked at Mia. "You'll need to get rid of this car," he told Mia. "Find something with a trunk and bring it to the house."

Mia eyed him and frowned, "Are you sure it's safe?"

Bracing himself for the effort he knew it was going to take, Pearce opened the door and pulled himself to his feet, laid an arm along the door to lean back down and meet Mia's skeptical gaze.

"It's safe," he said. "Just don't waste time."

He slapped the door closed and stepped back from the car, watched it drive off while he put the gun into the waistband of his jeans, pulled the shirt over it.

The short walk to the safe-house in the cold was good for his head and put his senses back on the edge. For the first time, he felt truly awake again.

The former warehouse had only one exit. It was only halfway converted yet, more units were planned to be added, but right now the only way to leave and avoid the door would be to go right through the wall.

Approaching the front door, Pearce didn't slow down. He spared the broken lock only a passing glance as he pushed the door open. Speed was key, giving his enemy no chance to react. He guessed the man was lounging around on the couch, bored out of his mind rather than alert because he'd been kept in the dark.

The door was bent out shape and resisted him a little, advertising his approach, but by then he was already in the room. He'd been right, the man was on the couch, his gun and feet up on the table. By the time, he'd got one feet down and reached for the gun, Pearce was already on him. He kicked the gun out of his hand and tackled him into the couch. Pearce snatched a cushion, pressed it into the struggling man's face, drew the gun. He pushed the barrel deep into the cushion before he pulled the trigger.

The bang of the shot was still audible, but he didn't think it would cause too much attention in the general noise of the construction work. Mostly, the cushion was there to shield him from the splatter of blood.

The man went limp instantly and Pearce climbed off him. He was breathing harder than he should after such a small exertion, but he'd chalk that up to the drugs still in his system.

Looking around the room, he spotted his rig in a varying degree of dismantlement. Someone had started to unplug the network, but lost interest halfway through, probably when he'd taken that smoke-break before. He found one of his replacement phones in the bottom drawer of the desk and pocketed it.

His coat lay over a stool by the bar counter and he walked over to it. He saw the bag with the wine and vodka he'd brought Heather, one of the last clear memories he had.

He checked out the bedroom and bath, just in case he'd missed anyone, but other than his bloodstained sweater, his gun and baton, there was nothing there. He returned to the kitchen, put the phone on the counter and opened the vodka, picked a drinking glass because it was behind the first cabinet he tried.

The alcohol burned down his throat, he briefly questioned the wisdom of drinking, but he suspecvted it had already caused all the trouble it could.

After a while, he reached for the phone and dialled Ramsey's number.

_"Ramsey." _

He had to clear his throat before he trusted it to speak, there was nothing he could do about the hoarseness. The pain, he just ignored.

"If I give you everything I have on Heather Quinn, could you use it?"

To his credit, Ramsey didn't take long to figure out who was calling and he seemed to even be giving the option some thought before he said, _"That's not as easy to answer as you think. The information you give me, it's almost certainly illegally obtained, so that makes it difficult to tackle. Hands the defence many arguments on a silver platter." _He paused for a moment. _"Why would you do that? What happened?" _

"Do you about Kenneth Quinn?"

_"Of course. Did you have something to do with it?" _

Pearce didn't answer immediately, considered what Ramsey would do with the truth if he told it. Finally, he said, "Heather's gone. I can find her, but you'll have to get her yourself. She'll be ready for me."

_"How do I 'get' her?" _

"You arrest her," Pearce said, stating the obvious.

_"What do I charge her with?" _Ramsey's tone was impatient, bordering on condescending.

"What if I made everything public?"

_"Absolutely not. I cannot tell you what'd happen then. It'd be a nightmare of prejudicial publicity and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Don't do it." _

Pearce considered and allowed the silence to stretch uncomfortably, made worse by the absence of sight. "Protective custody," he finally said.

_"How so?" _

"If I release this information, Heather Quinn's life will be in danger from several members of her own organisation. And if they don't get her, I will."

_"Just to be clear, you are threatening to kill her?"_

"Yes."

Ramsey was silent again, but only briefly. He made a small sound in his throat and then said, _"I can work with that." _

"I'll let you know where she is soon."

He hung up the phone and tossed it aside, watched as it slid along the counter and came to a rest precariously close to the edge, just before it tipped over.

He settled his elbows on the counter and let his head hang down, tension in his neck and shoulders and all the way down his spine. He slipped to a stool and dropped his head in a hand. Idly, he stirred two finger through the vodka and traced the gash on his cheek.

* * *

_End of Femme Fatale_

* * *

**Note**: I get the distinct impression Aiden's not really having a good time in this one. I feel like I owe him something nice now… not sure I know how to do nice, though. No one wants to see 3k words of Aiden getting drunk while watching sports, right?


	58. The Dark End of the Street

**Warning: **Reader Discretion Advised/Disturbing themes

* * *

[summary: the vigilante pays his dues]

[takes place in 2018, soon after femme fatale]

**_The Dark End of the Street**

* * *

The conventions of urban legends dictates the video should be grainy, full of blurry pixels and the sound should be off just a fraction, but it's not. The video spares no details, draws the room and the two men in sharp relief. It reveals it's location through the view through the windows of Marina City, for later, when the police storms the place.

The chair in the centre of the frame is bolted to the floor, a polished steel piece of furnishing, intentionally solid and unmoving even before the man is pushed down into it and strapped tightly into place by simple zip-ties on hands and feet. The plastic straps bite deep into him, through the fabric of his expensive suit and it brings him out of the daze he's in. He pulls his head up and his eyes are bloodshot and take a long moment to focus on the other man.

In Chicago in 2018, everyone will recognise the vigilante. He is an urban legend in his own right, a boogyman and a saviour, depending on where you stand and where you look and it'd be smart to assume he's aware of this. He wears what can, at this point, be best described as, his full regalia. The battered leather coat has seen better days, the hems are frayed and the leather discoloured in many places. Scraped away on rough asphalt, burned and splattered in blood and a few patched bullet holes here and there.

As the vigilante straightens away from the bound man, his masked face passes across the screen, allowing a brief glimpse of the fine lines around his eyes and their brilliant green, the deeper shadows where his brows are drawn together into a deep frown.

His movement is crisply smooth as he steps out of frame. A moment later, the picture shifts a little as he adjust the camera.

The man in the chair chuckles quietly to himself, gaze fixed on the vigilante and says, "Seriously? What are you doing?"

He gets no answer, but the vigilante returns, walks behind him and slides a hand through his hair, long fingers encased in fine black gloves in harsh contrast to the man's pallid face. The vigilante's grip tightens and he tilts the man's head back, angles it straight at the camera, an invitation to run Profiler on his face.

[Vincent Fisher] Profiler will say, even in its vanilla version, and offer a link to Fisher homepage, where he advertises as a freelance business manager and consultant.

Fisher's neck muscles strain in the vigilante's grip as he turns his head a little to catch a look of him.

"What will she say?" he asks, careless of the invisible audience or perhaps just because of it. "What will she think about you?"

The vigilante drops his hand down, covers Fisher's mouth with his hand and pulls his head back, exposes his throat and the vigilante leans down by his side. He pulls the mask from his face. The last good picture of him is years out of date so this cannot be an accident, not when he's the one who put the camera there and fixed its eye on himself. His features are harsh, less handsome and more ordinary than infamy would have it. His voice is pitched low, barely audible without audio enhancement.

"Do you know what happens if you keep talking?" he asks without much inflection other than an uncompromising rasp.

He takes his hand away, though and Fisher turns his head a little further, makes eye contact and despite his precarious position, Fisher doesn't seem daunted. He bares his teeth in a mocking grin.

"Oh yes," he says and its sincere enough. "You'll hurt me worse and then you'll kill me." His gaze darts away from the vigilante for a moment, pauses on the camera as if he has to make sure attention is on him, as if there's a chance its not. He drops his gaze back to the vigilante.

"I know you," Fisher adds. "But that's not the point. I know _what _you are, too."

The vigilante's expression remains the same, pretending to dismiss Fisher's insinuation and he doesn't ask, doesn't give Fisher the prompts he's looking for.

"Some people like the chase," Fisher continues anyway. He relaxes his pose and neck, faces away from the vigilante. "And you do, I'm sure you do, but I think you like the kill more. Or… no," he says, puts his head from side to side as if he's putting it together even as he speaks.

The vigilante steps in close behind him, a looming shadow now, the frame cuts off the top of his head. He has become his own archetype, the high collar and the slight downward slope of his shoulders, his strength made manifest in the tight control of his movement.

"No," Fisher continues, oblivious to the vigilante's actions or uncaring of them. He's secured in the chair and he knows he's not going anywhere unless the vigilante lets him.

"It's all of it, isn't it? The hunt and the kill, but between them, you get off on the struggle." He pauses for a moment, considering, watches the camera and seems to look _through, _to whoever happens to be on the other side of the video. "And making people _watch… _you are a very sick person." He chuckles to himself. "I won't judge, I made good money off of people like you, but I don't know about your audience…"

There a people out there in the world who would try to turn the hunter into prey, who will dissect this film with a mad surgeon's meticulousness. There are algorithms designed by masterminds to see through the deceiving lies every man and woman tells themselves to get through their day. There is no privacy of the mind, no secret depth of the soul, but the vigilante is an outlier and the models don't work so well on outliers.

He let's Fisher talk because he can, because there's nothing here that'd threaten him, and because he's given Fisher a warning and, freely, Fisher has chosen to disregard that warning.

The vigilante brings a zip-tie down around Fisher's throat and pulls it tight. At first, it merely rest against Fisher's vulnerable skin. It shuts Fisher's up and he struggles to hold on to his casual mien in the face of what's about to happen. He opens his mouth, though, for a last, penetrating quip, but this time, the vigilante doesn't let him have it and the zip-tie cuts into Fisher's flesh and the only sound he manages to make is a quiet wheezing.

It turns out very quickly, that the zip-tie isn't tight enough to kill, it's not even tight enough to cause unconsciousness, but it rips Fisher's self-control away from him, body lurching in desperate reflex, pulling and tearing on the bounds in a futile attempt to get away.

The vigilante leans forward again, on the other side of Fisher's face than before and says, "Don't worry about scarring." His tone has barely shifted, but he doesn't hide some dark amusement at the private joke, not meant to be understood by the audience and far beyond Fisher's dimming awareness.

The vigilante steps away after that, leaves the frame and the strangling man and with the motion, there's no distraction left for a viewer, for the friend of a friend, who happened to be online on the day the video appeared online out of nowhere. It's nothing like CG, not as smooth and spectacular, it does not bow to even the most fleeting aestheticism. Blood flow stunted and panic alone make Fisher's otherwise appealing face bloat and discolour, patches of blue and red and bulging eyes. He shakes, as violently as the bondage will allow, so close to the breaking point and each passing second promises _this is it, this is it, this is it _and it never is. It doesn't stop and although, in reality, it is only minutes, it feels like forever just watching and how long it feels for Fisher is beyond all normal human comprehension.

Eventually, Fisher's body does go limp and the vigilante steps into frame again. His expression is carved from stone and ice, unmoved and unmoving, calm concentration as he loosens the zip-tie. He brings Fisher back with a slap on the cheek, perversely gentle in contrast to the display of his cruelty.

Fisher's gaze is unfocussed and wary now, he either cannot speak or does not dare, sags heavily in the steel chair. With his back to the camera, the vigilante only stands for a long minutes and Fisher's rattling breath quiets. The vigilante waits until Fisher's has started to collect himself before he pulls the zip-tie tight again.

The vigilante remains in the picture this time. Walks past Fisher and settles against the edge of a desk and watches as Fisher's struggles gradually lose their strength and even the vestiges of coordination they had had at the beginning. The movement deteriorates into spasms and tremors and Fisher's head lolls back even when he's allowed to breathe. The vigilante lets it go on for longer than is comfortable, until the fine suit is drenched in sweat and blood begins to seep through the fabric on Fisher's arms, chafed raw in his senseless fight to free himself.

It goes on until whatever depraved fascination has prompted the viewers to watch has faded and all that's left is the stirring of some primal revulsion, coming from a depth far beyond mere nausea.

For a moment the vigilante blocks the view and it's possible to imagine a moment of clarity in Fisher as their gaze connects, or perhaps it is mere fantasy and it is the greater mercy to think that Fisher's consciousness has already fled.

The vigilante grips the zip-tie and pulls, more force this time and the zip-ties is lost in the flesh. It looks obscene, but it doesn't last long, because this time the vigilante means to kill. Fisher shudders and twitches and goes still, his eyes wide but disturbingly empty.

The vigilante allows the audience a last glimpse of his face, lets them see how frighteningly little he has been affected by what he's just done. In turning away, he pulls the mask up just as he leaves the frame.

The camera keeps running for long minutes after he's gone, rests intimately on the dead man before it finally, not in pity but from necessity, cuts to black.

* * *

The vigilante catches sight of himself in the mirror in the elevator as he leaves. There is no sign in his face of what he's just done. He stops briefly as he steps out in the street, uses his phone to survey his surrounding, but the city hasn't changed because of the dead several stories above him. The crowd flows with and around him as he walks to his car. He draws a few stares, but he's used to them by now and they pass without incident. Most people will dismiss the moment, will think they are mistaken or that their own imagination played tricks on them. He's seen it in the texts to their friends later, only a few have the presence of mind to recognise him and reach a decision. It's been a slow change in the public awareness about him. He's better known these days and like any celebrity, people don't believe they'll ever come across him.

He reaches his car and gets in and ignores the way his gloves cling a little damply to his palms as he puts his hand on the wheel. He ignores the way his fingers tremble and tension runs the length of his body, slices over his skull and down his neck. He ignores the numbness in his stomach and the lump in his throat that takes some effort to swallow down. The blood doesn't pulse low in his groin for two or so heartbeats too long and the street slips sharply into focus, the world slowing down unbidden.

Nothing's changed today, he tells himself.

The conventions of urban legends dictates the film must be hard to find, must be handed down through layer upon layer of friends and distant acquaintances. He can upload to all relevant platforms, but it won't stay there for long, it'll be taken down by law enforcement and website owners, but no one believes they can shove the ghost back into the bottle. They know who he is, his enemies, and now they have a new piece of knowledge about what he can do them.

The conventions of urban legends dictates there must be more to the video than meets the eye. Embedded in the video is the link to a cloud storage account, filled with case files and other videos, all of them detailing Vincent Fisher's true crimes, all the ones he's never been convicted of in the years he spent working for the Chicago South Club and for himself. There are videos, some fragments, some at their full length and the symmetry falls into place, seeing the girls struggle in Fisher's arms with piano wire around their throats and sheer animal panic in their eyes.

Any lingering doubts about whether Fisher was a victim today will be purged in the face of the collected evidence against him. No attorney will have to nod it through, no judge will have to weigh it against some constitutional right and no criminal defence lawyer will tear it to pieces.

Fisher deserved much worse than some thirty minutes of _discomfort_ before his death, the vigilante thinks to himself, reviewing the compiled data before he hits the upload button.

* * *

_End of _The Dark End of the Street_

* * *

**Reference:**

„_Look… everyone needs to take a walk to the dark end of the street sometimes, it's what we are." Strange Days_

* * *

**Author's Note: **In Dark Clouds, Aiden displays this disturbing tendency to play with his prey and even now, I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. Aiden's is a complex personality, but his traits, even the contradictory ones, when put in the right place and context, form a compelling whole. This sadism, though? I don't know where it belongs in the jigsaw. This story is my attempt to make it fit _somehow. _Let me know how I'm doing.


	59. Gunmetal Sky: Lay of the Land

**Author's Note: **All the way back in Quaint Old World, there's a mention of Aiden tangling with drones. It's always bothered me that I never covered the special incident. So there, have the drones.

**About Gunmetal Sky: **Gunmetal Sky fills the time between Firewalker and Empty Darkness. It's going to be in several separate parts, similar to Nightcall.

* * *

[summary: know thy enemy]

[this takes place in april 2026]

**_Gunmetal Sky: Lay of the Land**

* * *

The plastic sheet on the ground isolated against the damp climbing up through the sludge and rock, but it wasn't doing anything against the cold. It was slowly permeating the layers of clothes Ray wore. He'd fallen for the propaganda that it was April and that spring was happening, but while it held true for Chicago, the countryside around Pawnee had its own microclimate and here, it felt more like it couldn't decide between rain and snow. The plastic sheet was a start, but his denim jacket was beginning to feel slightly soggy. He wore a bulletproof shirt underneath and its metamaterial delivered some small comfort, but he was beginning to wonder if he could get a pair of long-johns from the same fabric.

Ray flexed his shoulders with a groan, but the move only pushed his stomach harder into the cool and hard underground. He muttered a curse, but the distraction was only momentarily. In stiff fingers, he was holding a pair of binoculars against his eyes. They were linked with the digital Lenses in his eyes, which in turn were linked up with the phone that rested loosely in one hand, adjusting the binoculars with small movements of his fingers, controlling the data scrolling through his field of vision.

By his side, in a similar position and similarly equipped, Aiden Pearce hadn't said anything for a few long minutes.

The terrain dropped away just in front of them, opening the view between dark green pines and rocky, moss-covered ground, stretching a mile to the north, where the trees vanished to be replaced by the clear tips of hills and mountains surrounding Blume HQ. It used to be a reclusive place, hidden from sight by the landscape and hidden from passerbys by the quaint, if rundown, charm of Pawnee. People, especially Chicagoans were vaguely aware Blume HQ existed and where it was, but few had ever cared enough to seek it out. Blume's offices in the city were flashier and openly amendable to curious customers.

In the years since ctOS runaway success nationwide, Blume HQ had expanded far into the surrounding landscape. The company bought — or already owned — large swathes of the land surrounding the original central buildings. Now, people called the area Tech Meadows, home to several smoothly white structures for Blume's R&amp;D departments and an on-site server farm dug deep into the bedrock, where the temperatures were stable, the rock supplied a natural heat-sink and even the worst storm or flood wouldn't reach.

"What they've been doing up here?" he muttered. "Looks like damned terraforming to me."

He saw several buildings reaching high in the sky that looked like apartment buildings and if he zoomed in, he could spot a plaza between them with a fountain in the middle and a group of parasoled café tables at one end. Blume's very own village, filled to the brim with handpicked geniuses hired straight out of college and brainwashed into the corporate identity before they could get any ideas of their own.

"They're making good money," Aiden observed.

"Good money it ain't," Ray growled. "Bad one, that's what it is. Bad money. Stinks all the way up here and we're in the wind."

They were close enough, Aiden's shoulder rubbed against his when he shrugged, there was the quiet moan of leather from his new coat and his voice the same rumbling listlessness he'd carried like a shield through the two weeks since the attack on his place in the Millennium Point high-rise. It was irritating, but it was also hard to blame him for his perpetual dark mood. Indeed, the thing that annoyed Ray the most was that he felt it beginning to rub up on him.

"Money doesn't stink," Aiden stated.

Ray grunted, kept it inaudible in the interests of keeping a useless argument from breaking out. He lowered the binoculars and pushed himself up on his elbow, rolled around and sat up. His joints groaned with him, kept too stiff for too long when it was too cold. He was beginning to feel old and he didn't like it one bit. It hammered away at the back of his head in all the quiet moments, late at night or early in the morning, in the gaps in time when he waited for a progress bar to fill. Sometimes, it slapped him in the face, too, when he caught himself considering to take the elevator and spare himself the stairs…

"There's something else," Aiden said after a moment, a hint of emotion in his voice cutting right through Ray's gloomy review.

Without a copy of Blume's new opePraetereaPraeterearating system, their days as free men were done. Their days as _living _men were done, if it came to that. They knew too much, seen too much through the years. It made them dangerous to Blume and their cronies in politics and law enforcement. _Praeterea, _Blume had code-named their new OS, but there hadn't been a beep of advertising about it yet. Their data was severely limited, but all signs pointed to Praeterea being ready to go by the end of the year, so it seemed like Blume wanted to do this under the radar.

Ray blinked irritably, wiped his hand on his cargos before he brushed the Lenses from his eyes and stuffed them into his pocket. His eyes burned with strain and his very eyeballs seemed to chafe in their sockets. He'd been looking through the Lenses for what? Four hours now? And he'd always been sensitive to the damn things.

"Oh, more?" he asked. "Ain't nothing we haven't seen before." He counted it off. "Guards, in groups of threes with modern combat gear and armed to the teeth and with their — entirely unconstitutional — right to shoot any trespasser who looks at their Mama wrong. Motion, sound and heat sensors. More cameras than you can shake a stick at and that's just after two hours of lying around in the mud. I'm not sure I'm up for more."

But he was, some perverse desire to see the exact outline of the fortress Blume had built right under their noses. He wanted to know in precise, garish detail all the points of his life that lead him here.

Aiden's back rose a little as he took a slightly deeper breath. His voice had dropped back to an apathetic growl. He moved his head a little, barely a glance past the binoculars in Ray's general direction.

"You wanted this," he said. "I wanted to quit."

Ray huffed. "You wanted to run away with your tail between your legs," he corrected. What he didn't say was that Aiden wanting to quit looked like a betrayal any way he turned it. They'd had their differences over the years, Aiden could be bone-headed and difficult and Ray knew himself well enough to know he was no different, but the one thing Ray wasn't willing to forgive was someone who couldn't stand by their principles.

Again Aiden shrugged, Ray got the impression he really didn't care.

Aiden said, "I don't know, I like to keep all bits attached."

Another deep breath, an effort to let it go before it spiralled in a direction neither of them wanted.

"There's something else," Aiden repeated.

Ray hesitated, not quite sure if he _wanted _to let Aiden off the hook, but reasonably it made more sense to focus on Blume and why they were in this godforsaken corner of Illinois.

With deliberate slowness, Ray took his attention away from Aiden and back to the binoculars. He adjusted them to work without the Lenses and instead use their own HUD. Dropping back on his hands and knees, he lowered himself back to the cold ground with some reluctance. And to think he used to _like _this place…

"What?" he asked.

"Small, black… thing," Aiden said and Ray snorted a tired laugh.

"It's hovering," Aiden added.

Ray squinted, groped for his phone and adjusted the output, zoomed in to the max, but all that achieved was that he lost orientation briefly, the binoculars only showing a patch of grey sky. He zoomed back out, then lowered the shake correction, to no avail.

"Ain't seeing shit," he said.

"Left of the flagpole, just above the line of buildings," Aiden directed and Ray zoomed out until he found the flagpole, then looked up along it until finally he caught the small thing seemingly hanging in the air. As he watched, it dipped down and became invisible against the darker background, only to appear again on the other side of the flagpole.

"Camera drone?" Ray offered.

"At that height? In that wind?" Aiden asked. "At that size?"

Dryly, he added, "Impressive."

Impressive indeed and not in a good way. He tried to get a better reading from the thing. If it was a drone, it would be communicating with something on the ground. Blume's buildings were impenetrable for signals, but perhaps they could intercept something from this high up.

They couldn't get into the Blume network from the outside, only the lower-tier workstations were still running the old OS and the new ones, where they encountered it, proved an entirely different sort of beast. But even so, his phone should be able to pick up _something _out there, but other than some very strong draw on the power grid itself, there was nothing there. Blume was collecting all the data it could, but it was proving amazingly successful at keeping its own information — or any of the information — from leaking out. Which was not to say that Blume wasn't _using _what assets they had, far from it. For years now you could see their hand in political decisions, not just Chicago or the state, but all the way to Washington, and the Supreme Court. It wasn't eradicating the democratic structures, it was just running its own thing right underneath them and no one seemed to know or care.

No doubt Blume Corporate Police was playing a large part in all of it, too. BCP could and would interfere with everything that even _appeared _to threaten Blume infrastructure. And they weren't called 'police' for nothing, their jurisdiction actually superseded CPD where it affected Blume, and Blume got to decide what affected it or not. BCP conducted its own investigations and they had a habit of getting the results they wanted, whether they corresponded with reality or not.

Aiden had said nothing for a while, but now he moved again and asked, "How big do you think that thing is?"

"Bigger than a baseball, I guess," Ray shrugged. "If it's a camera that's 360° surveillance. It's going to scan your ugly mug and mine in the system in nano-seconds and realise we haven't been paying our parking tickets. I ain't gonna be pretty when that happens, you can bet your cap on it. The whole perimeter must be under watch, I wouldn't want to get much closer to it than we already are."

"No," Aiden agreed.

Ray coughed, lowered the binoculars and looked into the distance with his own two eyes, oddly comforted by how tranquil the landscape looked like this. Nothing nefarious to see now, was there? Nothing to worry about, all he had to do was never look through the binoculars again, or down on his phone.

"Looks like you had the right idea all along," he muttered.

"It's my special talent."

Ray sat up again, gave Aiden's back a brief stare and sneered, although it was probably just as well Aiden couldn't see it. Ray's patience frazzled out slowly, he said, "Yes, that's why you followed me all the way out here."

Aiden curled up and around, put the binoculars down and regained his feet without any apparent effort. The Lenses flickered green in his amused eyes. "Can't let you be suicidal all on your own," he said.

"Wait," he added as he walked away. It took him a moment to climb back down to the dirt road where they'd parked the car earlier.

Ray stood up, too, used the moment to stretch out and stamp some blood back into his leg, he tucked his hands away into his pockets for some warmth.

"I'm telling you," he said. "If there isn't any hot rum at the end of all this…"

He stopped when he heard the car's ignition, glanced over to watch as Aiden turned the car around and parked again.

"I'm truly going suicidal," he finished to himself. He turned on his heels and took a few steps to the very edge of the slope, kicked a small stone loose and watched it tumble down.

It was quiet out here, if only in the small space between Aiden killing the engine again and the time he took to come back. There was even some bird singing somewhere in the treetops, although it didn't sound very enthusiastic about it, as disappointed about the weather as Ray was.

Aiden's footsteps were slightly heavier when he returned, but Ray only looked back at him when he heard the smooth metallic snap as Aiden set up his rifle on the plastic sheet.

"You're never gonna hit that," he said, just because. It _was _a long shot for a very small and moving target, even for a gunman like Aiden.

"I want to know what happens," Aiden said as if it was some kind of meaningful counterargument.

Ray pulled an unimpressed grimace, but took a few more steps aside. There was no reason to ruin the shot for Aiden and he wasn't in the mood to be a handy stand-in to blame for when he missed.

In stepping away, his gaze fell on the car.

"You think they'll be all over us like a bad rash," he observed. He turned back and watched Aiden get in position behind the rifle and make no answer to what was an obvious statement of fact.

"I'll drive," Ray finished. "You better hit something."

Aiden took his time, adjusted his aim, flexed his fingers before he settled his hand against the trigger, leant in behind the scope.

Ray picked up his binoculars again, grimaced when his fingers were hit by the cold air again, but he ignored it as he trained the binoculars on Blume HQ. He changed the setting to give him a wider few and a better oversight.

The first shot snapped hard in the empty air, the recoil punched through Aiden's shoulder and down through his back, the tension of his muscles visible even through his clothes. Nothing changed above Blume and Tech Meadows, so Ray assumed Aiden had missed, but he refrained from pointing it out.

At least gunshots were common in the area. There was always hunting season for one game or another and Blume wouldn't be able to know they'd been targeted. Pawnee was home to all sorts of dropouts, off-the-grid Offliners out in their ever-growing trailer park, the redneck remnants of the Pawnee Militia and the entire rest of the population sympathising with all of them.

The black thing dropped out of sight again and it took Ray a long minute until he spotted it again in a completely different place. A moment later, another thing cropped up, so there really were more than one of them. Some sort of surveillance seemed likely and Aiden was right, the drones were incredibly stable in the air, disconcertingly so.

Now that he knew what to look for, Ray spotted at least three more drones and he had no idea which one Aiden was aiming for. Even with the high-tech rifle, Aiden had to eyeball half the variables. Neither of them wanted to risk shooting even a rangefinder laser in Blume's general direction. Everything they knew about the place suggested such a thing would raise an instantaneous alarm and God knows what response Blume had ready to go.

Aiden shot again and Ray saw one of the small drones drop from sight after the minuscule delay, the time it took the bullet to cross the distance.

Immediately, all the drones lifted up, hovered like a thick black swarm above Blume HQ and Tech Meadows. There were considerably more than the three Ray had already seen. They numbered in the _hundreds _out there.

"Oh," Aiden said quietly. Still lying on his belly, he turned to make eye contact with Ray, who kept an eye on the data feed of his phone, watched it gather what input it could from the incident. He had little time to analyse it on the go like this, he picked up a signal he couldn't immediately identify, but guessed it was the drones communicating with each other.

Aiden rolled to his feet.

"We need to leave," he said, already moving for the car. He only stopped when he realised Ray hadn't moved, still watching the data. He knew what he was looking for, the drones communicating and it was there, but barely detectable from the distance, but when Aiden had shot one of them, the signal strength had increased. The drones must share computing power, their OS kickstarting an analysis of what had happened, perhaps starting a response protocol or if they were running an AI, even determining an adequate response on their own.

The drone swarm lifted higher in the air, formed a cloud above Blume than set off in an loose arrowhead shape, seemingly untouched by the wind at their altitude, with only minor irregularities in their optimised flight pattern, compensating for the environmental conditions.

"We need to _leave," _Aiden repeated with more urgency, but Ray only shook from his motionlessness when Aiden closed his hand around Ray's upper arm and pulled sharply.

They hurried back to the pickup.

Aiden climbed in the driver's seat, but slipped on to ride shotgun. He set up the rifle against the side, but pulled out a MicroSMG, held the gun in his right hand, his phone in the left.

Ray climbed in, settled behind the wheel and hit the gas. The pickup sped down the dirt road, kicking up mud as it went.

"These aren't cameras," he said.

"You think?" Aiden asked back sardonically.

The road wound through the rocky forest, the mud clinging to the wheels, slowing them down.

Ray tried hard not to waste time looking into the rear-view mirrors, he was glad without the Lenses in his eyes, he didn't have to focus on the specifics of what was happening above and behind them. It got considerably harder to do when tension was coming off Aiden in waves, he turned in his seat, phone still in hand, but looked up from it, focussed on something above them.

Ray chanced a glance in the mirror but saw nothing but trees and mud-covered rock rushing away, until a gap in the uneven road dipped the car down in the front and he caught a glimpse of the sky behind them. His phone's original estimate had been two-hundred, but he hadn't lingered long enough to make sure it was accurate. So seeing only a thin smattering of black spots seemed like the first hint of good news.

He concentrated on the road, but said, "We're not fast enough."

"I know," Aiden replied and he sounded so blasé about it, Ray had to look at him again. Aiden had put the gun away, not willing to see what would happen if he shot at the drones again. Instead, he was intend on gathering all the information he could, gaze fixed on the drones for the Lens' input.

"Got a plan?" Ray asked.

Aiden took his sweet time before he answered, sensed the slow shake of Aiden's head, but didn't bother to look over.

Aiden said, "Keep going."

Ray snorted, finding some unexpected humour in the absurdity of the situation. But his was Pawnee, he'd been all over this place for a long time, Blume had never truly pushed him out, they only thought they had.

"I have an idea," Ray said after a moment of tense, pondering silence. "Can't shoot them all down, makes everything worse, gets all their little buddies on us, but if we… ah _shit!_"

The drones had drawn level with them and one of them dropped to the hood, gave both men a short, clear moment to appraise its appearance. A little bigger than Ray's original estimate, it looked like a chitinous black sphere hung within a rotating circle. It had extended thin, prehensile feelers to keep itself upright.

The engine stalled and went dead. The speed of the car meant it didn't stop immediately, but kept going along the road, but with all electrical systems gone, Ray's attempt to brake was useless and turning the wheel only resulted in snapping the steering lock. The crashed into the shrubbery at the side of the road, brushed past a thick tree trunk and finally were stopped roughly as the car collided with a displaced, house-sized rock. Even the airbags didn't engage.

Deadpan, Ray said, "EMP, that was gonna be my idea, too."

"Very localised, though," Aiden remarked and the slight green glow from his eyes proved the Lenses and his attached phone were still working. He kicked open the door and slipped out, retrieving the SMG as he went, but leaving the rifle behind, it wouldn't do much good on the run anyway.

The drone lifted off from the hood, stabilised itself in the air and then shot a small projectile at Aiden, thin twin wires unwinding in the air behind it. Aiden's evasive half-turn wasn't fast enough and the projectile hit him in the upper chest, just beneath where the collar of his bulletproof shirt ended, tiny electrical sparks shot up along his throat, but the shirt deflected most of the current. Aiden hissed in pain, but his body didn't seize up.

By then, Ray had got out of the car on the other side, grunted a hasty but heartfelt curse and pulled his own gun, took aim and shot the drone from the sky. At least it wasn't armoured to hell and back, but perhaps there had been at least _some _design limitations. He ducked back behind the car when another drone tried to taser him.

"Let's go!" Ray shouted, already turning away and painfully aware of the other drones closing in on them. Moving past the crashed car, he pushed into the thicket. Behind him, Aiden used the wires to reel in the incapacitated drone, then turned and hurried after Ray.

The forest ground was treacherous, especially off-road like this. Broken branches and muddy pits hiding hard rocks, slowing them down far more than was anywhere comfortable, but up above them, the trees and the shrubbery posed a similar navigational challenge for the drones. Ray didn't look back to see if their numbers had grown, only paid attention to Aiden with one ear either, heard him lumber through the forest, sometimes faster, sometimes slowing down to fire at the drones.

"T-Bone!" Aiden shouted, still moving. "Where the fuck are we going?"

If he could spare the time and the breath, Ray would've laughed. "My old place!" he shouted back.

He felt Aiden's surprise and skepticism, but Aiden didn't question him further. There was the chattering of the SMG and Ray liked to imagine he heard the drone tumble uselessly to the ground.

In his mind, Ray projected the route they needed to take, calculated where they had been and where they needed to go, accounting for all the tiny detours the terrain demanded. He didn't like it, they were quite far away and he felt the cool air burning in his lungs already, despite the adrenaline pumping through his body.

He suspected the drones were meant to incapacitate an attacker, mark their location and keep watch until BCP showed up to pick them up, charge them and let some Blume-internal tribunal sentence them to whatever they felt like it without involving the real police at all. Easy and neat. Anyone who went missing out here, who really cared anyway?

Would Blume bother to parade his or Aiden's head to the public at all? Risk either of them becoming some kind of martyr or would they just empty a round in each their heads, then dump them somewhere? He wasn't too keen to find out which, but it kept his mind occupied anyway.

A thin branch hit him in the face, drew a sharp line of pain across his cheek. He slapped at the branch, but tried not to let it slow him down. Behind him, the SMG snapped again and he heard the low metallic click as Aiden dropped the spent magazine and snapped in a new one.

The bushes thinned, advertising the change in terrain just a moment before Ray broke through to a narrow path winding through the forest. He slowed down, glanced back to make brief eye-contact with Aiden, who nodded, then Ray turned and down the path, broke through the thicket on the other side and forced a new path.

"Careful!" he shouted as he slowed down again a few minutes later. Aiden drew level with him, stopped sharply as the terrain in front of them unexpectedly opened up, a sharp decline from a broken rock threatened a bad fall, although it was unlikely to be lethal.

Below and ahead, however, Ray's old junkyard sprawled in seemingly unchanged chaos, but it seemed slightly more overgrown with vegetation and reeked of abandonment in ways it hadn't done before.

Aiden skittered to a halt at the edge, gave a quick glance back and shouted, "Cover me!"

Ray reacted immediately, went down in a crouch and started picking out the drones with his gun, while Aiden climbed down halfway then jumped the rest of the way, softened the landing by dropping into a roll and regained his feet. He gained some distance from the wall and used it to aim at the drones, picked them out of the sky with short, concentrated bursts for the SMG, dropping the drones like over-sized blow-flies.

A taser projectile bit into Ray's back, he felt it, but it wasn't penetrating the shirt, but he wasn't sure how much of that it could take. The drones' were only aiming for the torso, though, so he'd only knock himself out if he stumbled and the taser hit his shoulder or legs.

Under Aiden's cover fire, Ray climbed down the incline, dropped the last few feet and pressed his back against the wall to survey the place.

They had lost time climbing down, even if it wasn't much, but more drones had joined the others, humming in the air above the junkyard, but they were most congealing on Aiden, who had kept moving and dodging, weaving through debris and Ray's old sculptures to make himself a bad target.

Ray watched him only for a moment, ran along the wall and took cover behind a pile of old, metal crates. He leaned his shoulder into the rile and pushed against them until they toppled over in a scream of uncomfortably loud, rusted metal, revealing heavy trapdoor.

He fingered for the phone in his pocket, quickly pulled it out and accessed the old apps to unlock the trapdoor.

"Aiden!" he called and lifted his head to peer over the crates. He immediately had to drop his head again when a taser projectile shot at him. He ducked, raised his gun and shot the drone down.

"How many _are_ there?" he asked aloud, more confused than irritated by their persistence. He still heard the noise of Aiden's SMG, so at least he hadn't gone down yet.

"Aiden!" he shouted again. "Get over here!"

He opened the trapdoor, the room beneath released a musty smell, wet earth and old metal. It was sheathed in darkness.

Aiden dove past him, rolled again, but only came up into a crouch. He gave Ray a frown, but didn't let his attention linger, because the ever increasing swarm of drones had already formed an ominous cloud above them.

Aiden slipped down the hole, hit the ground in the dark and Ray dove after him, snapped his finger on the trigger of the trapdoor. It slammed closed automatically.

"I hope this has a second exit," Aiden said.

"Nope," Ray said, pushed past him and set his phone to function as flashlight, found his away across the old storage space to a wall and the light-switch. It didn't work.

"BCP will be here any minute," Aiden grated. "You'd better have a plan."

"I said I did, didn't I?" Ray waved him off, made his way to the other end of the room, put his phone down and set to start the old generator there. It took several tries, but finally the machine started rumbling, the lights flickered on.

He'd set up the room as a backup command centre, for emergencies not unlike this one. After leaving Pawnee with Aiden all those years ago, the place had been left to its own, probably cleaned out by Blume several times and the room bore the signs of it quite clearly. Blume had, however, not dismantled the place.

A bare desk against a wall had once held his computers. Ray leaned over it to remove the wall panel, then connected it to the switchboard.

Staring down at his phone, he said, "I'm uploading all my data to your phone."

Aiden walked over slowly, allowed Ray access to his phone. He leaned his back against the desk and stretched out one leg casually.

"It's three minutes," he said. "What's going on?"

Ray coughed and straightened, checked the estimated time for the data transfer and nodded to himself.

"I've been thinking of reinstating this place," he said. "Blume's been over it seven times, I've been keeping count, and they pretty much lost interest in it. Last two times, their guys stopped, had a smoke, took a few pictures and left again."

"It doesn't look like you've done much," Aiden frowned with somewhat condescending look around.

Ray snorted, "I haven't, but it's mostly wired up. You remember the sculptures?"

"Yeah, but I don't see how they'd be effective against that swarm of drones."

"That's because you didn't consider drones," Ray announced, grinned slightly when he added, "but I have."

Aiden's expression darkened a little, but he said nothing. Couldn't argue with the truth, could he.

Ray waved a hand in the air vaguely. "There've been design ideas for this since my tenure at Blume, not viable then, not enough space in them for decent cpu, ram and batteries. Couldn't secure the wifi signal for cloud computing, either. Now… well, you've been there."

"Yeah."

Ray cast another glance down at the phone, stepped away from the table and bent down to retrieve a metal box from a shelf nearby. He set it on the table and opened it.

He said, "The sculptures only look like scrap, I've upgraded them with a nano-carbon coating, making them superconductive. Now, when I charge them, they're capable of producing a strong magnetic field. I only tested for a strength of 4 Tesla, but that should be enough to scramble the drones good."

Aiden said nothing, but swiped the Lenses from his eyes and dropped them into the box.

Ray said, "I was going to insulate the control room and get a new terminal installed, but that'll have to wait till next time."

"Next time," Aiden echoed dryly. Ray fished his own Lenses from his pocket and dropped them, glanced at his phone and watched the last seconds count down on his phone. He cut the connection and Aiden put his phone in the box, too.

"All?" Ray asked.

"Binoculars are still in the car, don't carry anything else."

"Okay," Ray said. He took a breath and held it for the entire time it took him to access the app and set it up. The generator rumbled on. It _should _supply enough power for one burst, but he'd never tried it without linking to the power grid, something he couldn't do from down here.

He activated the sculptures.

It took a moment until they charged up and the only way to tell anything had happened was because the phone in his hand went dead. After another moment, the switchboard burned through and he and Aiden twitched back simultaneously. The generator stuttered and the lights flickered, but in the end, that was all.

A tightness in his chest loosened up unexpectedly, despite the disappointing lack of the sound of drones dropping from the sky. He knew he hadn't been holding his breath all that time, but the relief still came like a blow.

"I liked the explosions better," Aiden commented. He stepped back to the table, gave the smouldering switchboard an assessing glance, but then just pulled the metal box to him to retrieve his equipment.

"You still got a boat?" he asked.

Ray grinned, "Still got a boat."

"Then let's go."

Aiden had to lean into the hatch to get it open, the automatic system was just as dead as everything else.

The drones lay scattered on the ground around the trapdoor, not less ominous than they had been when hovering seemly weightlessly in the air. Ray stepped close to one and picked it up, held it out and turned it in his hand.

He picked up a second and saw Aiden do the same. At least they'd have _something _to show for their excursion into the lion's den — or the lion's backyard, in any case.

"I'm surprised Blume hasn't been bragging about their new security feature," Aiden said as they walked down the path to the boathouse.

"They certainly like their nasty surprises," Ray agreed. "Maybe not viable in the city. I bet the drones are running some kind of AI, you feed them too much intel, their responses become unpredictable. Blume still needs the goodwill of the people, no one wants to see their ugly side."

He grunted a quiet curse and added, "Almost miss those DedSec kids."

Aiden held his silence, giving Ray a chance to watch the entire tragedy replay before his inner eye again. Blume had been ruthlessly efficient when it took down DedSec, not only got most of their people behind bars — or shot them in "self-defence", as BCP hand-waved these incidents off — Blume had pretty much purged the entire network and began burning out the darknet as a whole. They'd bought Uplink, the company that backed the Grid, the network for fixers and other freelancers. Blume hadn't taken them down yet, but Uplink and the Grid was a useful source of information and no doubt Blume had been shopping there for themselves more than once. Of course, with Blume backing the Grid, it would be hard, if not downright impossible, to recruit anyone for a move against them.

"They know we are coming for them," Ray said.

Aiden sighed and shook his head. "They've known from the start."

"But not in an _abstract, _now they know we're all over them, gonna be all over my old place again, too, and it'd have been a good base of operations, too."

"Too far out," Aiden said. He was silent again, but then cleared his throat and said, "What do we have now?"

Ray grunted something inaudible, merely shaking his head. Every information gathering foray had just revealed that their position was even more precarious than any of them had originally thought. Blume had been building up to this for years, right under their noses and now they were ready to make their move, leaving Ray and Aiden and everybody else to play catchup and play it badly.

Of course Blume hadn't been able to catch and detain every DedSec activist, but whoever got away was keeping their heads down and even Ray, on far better footing with them than Aiden had ever been, hadn't been able to find any who was willing to help, at least none with enough skill to do it and that was even before the question of trustworthiness had come up.

He glanced over Aiden again, walking silently by his side, but something seemed off. It took a while until Ray identified a very slight limp in Aiden's step.

"You got hurt?" Ray asked. He wasn't surprised to see a spark of irritation cross Aiden's otherwise impassive expression. His jaw tensed and then forcedly relaxed, feigned composure.

Aiden shook his head, "It's fine, bumped into something. Your junkyard lives up to its name."

"Hn," Ray huffed a little. "The chaos is a great source of inspiration."

Aiden chuckled a little, but tried to suppress the limp for the rest of the way. This alone was prove he was holding out on something that Ray was planning to bring back up before he committed to a final charge against Blume. He wanted the truth on the table before that, but perhaps not right now. They had enough to swallow for one day.

A storm in the previous winter had knocked the boathouse askew and Ray had had to prop it up on one side with wooden beams. He saw now, as they approached it that the roof had caved in in one corner and if that wasn't a perfect metaphor for the overall state of things.

As least Ray's speedboat hadn't suffered any damage, protected under a canvas cover. Ray pulled it back, coughed at the dust he kicked up and balled the canvas together in his hand while Aiden opened the garage door, then came back and took a long step across the narrow gap to the boat.

"Hey, can you drive?" Ray asked. "I want to take a look at the drones."

Aiden nodded and slipped into the seat and drove the boat from the boathouse, kicking out a cascading spray of water behind them. The boat swerved unsteadily as the water's currents tucked at it until Aiden got it fully under his control.

Ray sat down beside him, one of the small drones in his lap, inspecting it.

"Holy Jesus on a stick."

Aiden chuckled. "That your final verdict?"

"Only half of it, isn't that what they say?"

"I don't know any 'they'."

"Well, I need my tools to check this thing out thoroughly, but it's the godfather of sophisticated technology. They don't have things like that in Hollywood, if you catch my drift."

"You mean this is science fiction?"

Ray rested a limp hand on top of the drone, leaned his head back and let the wind brush across his face. Aiden was completely right about that and completely wrong, too. It wasn't fiction, it sat right in his lap, it had disabled his car and tried to taser him. Without the insulating property of the shirt, their run would've been over before it began. Blume would be able to gather some data from the encounter, perhaps enough to remove that flaw from their design soon. A simple change in targeting would mean the drones shot at limbs, instead of the protected torso.

"You mean we can't do it," Aiden insisted, voice as rough as ever.

Ray stroked a hand down his beard thoughtfully, unwilling to say it aloud, it was bad enough that Aiden had taken it upon himself to be the naysayer in this entire operation. Aiden's original assessment wasn't true anyway. It was turning out to have been far too optimistic.

Ray said, "I still have a few more tricks. I ain't going until I've tried them all."

Aiden's mood had never recovered after the attack on his home, something more was going on about it, but Ray had a feeling it was personal and Aiden wasn't the sharing type.

Aiden moved his head just slightly, not quite a nod, but an indication he was listening, but he said nothing.

* * *

_End of _Gunmetal Sky: Lay of the Land_

* * *

**That magnetic field… **I did some reading, but at the end of the day, I'm just eyeballing this whole thing. A magnetic crane produces about 1 T and an MRI ranges between 0.3 and 3 T, so I think 4 is pretty okay for the most part. I tried looking into if _people _would feel strong magnetic fields, but I didn't really find much, so I assume magnetic fields of this range wouldn't be noticeable to most people. If that's all bullshit, let me know. This also applies to T-Bone's nano-carbon coating (I was thinking along the lines of fullerenes of some kind, but I can't even pretend to know what I'm talking about here.)

* * *

**Revised on 31/Oct/2016**


	60. Gunmetal Sky: Beauty and the Beast

**Author's Note: **Gunmetal Sky!Aiden is turning out to be a massive asshole. I've never really been into this whole 'likeable character' thing, but he's probably pushing it this time. It's just the start, too.

I couldn't figure out what laws "stealing a police chopper" breaks. Indeed, google keeps pointing me to GTA (don't remind me, I hate flying in GTA), some random idiots being chased by choppers and the pros and cons of using the things to fight crime. I'm beginning to think it isn't illegal to steal one of those…

**Recap: **Back in Firewalker, Jordi rescued Aiden from the top of a burning skyscraper. In the following fight with a UCAV, Jordi was shot and dumped in the ER by Aiden, who then had to beat a hasty retreat. Jordi's further fate remained undisclosed.

* * *

[summary: aiden takes care of an old friend]

**_Gunmetal Sky: Beauty and the Beast**

* * *

"Is everything all right?"

Rasha Heddad realised she'd been asked the question for a third time by now. She had stopped frozen, staring at the message on her phone. She'd been trying to figure out why it was _wrong, _why it shouldn't be there.

_(Are you going to be home by 9? Clé)_

Clément was her au pair in his eighth month of stay, already trying to laugh off his eventual departure to her nine-year old. Clément was a gift for Rasha's work hours, especially since taking over her mentor's law firm. He was also a gift on all other counts, funny and laid-back, with an interesting repertoire of European cuisine and a gift for languages. According to her son, he also told the best adventure stories in the world.

Clément getting in touch with her throughout the day wasn't unusual, indeed, it was what made her home-life tick like a smooth clock, but something just seemed out of place about the message. Perhaps it was because nine was too early, she'd rarely ever made it, unless there was some special event or emergency. She'd have to leave within the hour if she meant to make it at all. Why would he ask like that?

"Mrs. Heddad?" her colleague repeated. And then, softer, "Rasha?"

She shook her head, looked up and met her colleague's questioning gaze.

"It's fine," she said. "Fine."

She glanced at the tablet and the length of today's to-do list, ran the calculation in her head, then plastered a wan smile over her face. "I'm afraid we've got to cut this short," she said. "I'm going to go home early tonight."

Being the boss had its perks, after all, but she wasn't known to abuse them. Her colleague frowned, but didn't argue, realised that the time would be better spent finishing the current topic before Rasha left.

* * *

She'd texted Clément back, told him she'd be there, but got no further reply, no matter how hard she stared at the display of her phone. She wanted to give him a call to clear things up, but didn't dare. Instead, barely fifteen minutes after his first text, she tried to relax a little into the back of the taxi. If she'd learned nothing in her life at all, she knew to trust her instincts, a sixth sense for danger that came in handy in her work as defence attorney, when dangerous people were her daily bread.

The real-life concierge in her apartment building had been replaced by a digital one, a modern day hologram confined to a raised platform at the centre of the lobby. It's facial recognition had never malfunctioned, according to all the official records. If your face was not in the database, if you weren't a guest or a delivery person, you never got upstairs. Rasha wondered how reliable the official records were.

This evening, Rasha felt the loss of an actual human person, though, as she approached the thing to check in if there'd been anything out of the ordinary with her condo.

"Is there anything I can help you with?" the concierge asked sweetly.

"No, thank you."

A human, she'd have asked if they'd noticed anything, but what would the machine even tell her? Out of the ordinary meant out of its programme parameters and it had no useful responses for that. If Blume was running true AIs, Rasha didn't know, but this guy here certainly wasn't one of them.

She stalked away from it to the elevator. The concierge had already called it when she'd walked in, but it still took a miniscule second before the doors opened, too long for her nerves and she caught herself tapping her foot impatiently.

She looked at her phone again, no message from Clément. She thought about telling him she was almost there, but refrained, it was only a few moments.

She forced her breathing to calm, let the sense of vertigo and acceleration wash through her as the elevator took her upwards. She'd know what was going on soon enough. In the last moments, she tried to tell herself it was going to be harmless and her work had made her paranoid. One look too many behind the curtain, one murderer too many, one devious Club member, one smart-mouthed fixer… it was all it was, Clément probably had just made some great dinner as a surprise for her…

The elevator door opened and she walked through the corridor in a trance, the carpet softening her footsteps, made her feel like pushing through water and the polished black of her door threw back a vague shadow as her reflection. The tiny camera scanned in her face and unlocked the door smoothly.

She walked in and the first thing she realised was that there was no scent of cooking, indeed, no discernible sound at all, no music or tv. The light was on in the hallway and spilling from the open-plan kitchen and living room, she spotted the edge of the kitchen counter just ahead, where Clément stood oddly poised in the doorway.

On the left, halfway between the entrance and the kitchen, the door to her son's room stood open, light coming through.

"Rasha," Clément started, clearly wanting to say more but not finding the right words. His eyes were wide open, too much so, darting into every shadowed corner and his body had the tension of an animal, but she wasn't sure if he was poised to spring or flee.

Before she could ask him anything a man stepped into the hallway, quietly switched off the light in her son's room and levelled a heavy gaze on Rasha.

Part of her recognised him, but it was overruled by a much more primordial instinct. You did not want to see a stranger — _any _stranger — leave your son's bedroom like that.

She didn't realise she'd been moving until she was right in front of him — too tall like that, too solid — she looked away from him, registered distantly that he took a gracious step back from her, giving her free access to her son's room, pushing past him.

Her heart missed a beat in the moment before the lights came on. She thought she saw the brightness flood the room too slowly, outline the mess on the rug, a mountain of Lego and what seemed to be a half-finished robot, drawing utensils strewn over the desk in a corner. An armchair was pulled close to the bed, a book discarded in its seat, a lion-headed prince looking back at her.

Her son crunched open his eyes unhappily, blinked a few times as he was yanked back from sleep right after he'd dived into it.

"Mom?" he murmured.

It clicked through her mind, glacially slow, but she retained enough sense of reality to know it was only a second. She switched the lights back off immediately.

"Just wanting to say goodnight," she said, hoped her son was too sleepy to comprehend her strained tone.

"Okay," he murmured and seemed already asleep again.

She turned around sharply, but contained herself until she'd stepped outside and pulled the door closed behind her.

Aiden Pearce had given her some more space, stood in the centre of the hallway with his hands casually in the pockets of his jeans, looking back at her in steely composure.

She felt the bones of her jaw unclench, just this side of breaking.

"I know who you are," she said, fully aware it was an accusation more than a statement.

"We need to talk," he said.

"Yes," she agreed and took a step toward him. "Start explaining what you were doing in my son's room."

She saw a flicker of something in his gaze, but it was gone too fast for her to identify. He shrugged.

"Reading a bedtime story," he said. He glanced to the side, toward Clément and said, "Didn't I?"

Clément hesitated, started to nod in agreement, then stopped. His posture betrayed just how much Pearce intimidated him, but he found new resolve when he met Rasha's gaze.

Clément said, "Do I call the police?"

Pearce made a sound that was almost a sigh, his attention returned to Rasha, pressed down on her like a physical weight, just waiting for her decision. Waiting for her to recognise the scare tactic he'd used, letting her rage against it in the privacy of her mind and hate that she'd never dare risk her son's wellbeing for anything.

"Not yet," Rasha said to Clément, a compromise between her pride and Pearce's safeguards, no doubt he had more in place than she'd seen.

She looked at Pearce, "Yes, let's talk."

She walked past him, squeezed Clément's arm reassuringly as she passed, smiled slightly for him and said, "It'll be fine, I'll handle it. Just keep out of it, okay?"

He hesitated, searching her face for any sign she wanted him to do something else than what she was saying, but neither Clément nor she herself were a match for Pearce, even with surprise on their side and calling the police would make the situation just more untenable than it already was.

Clément nodded, _"D'accord, _okay." He looked briefly at Pearce, then said, "I'll stay here."

He passed by Pearce as he walked to the small bench along the wall, sat down stubbornly right at the edge of it, close to her son's bedroom door.

Rasha ignored Pearce's slight shrug, but tensed up when she walked ahead of him through the living room and into her study. Just having him where she couldn't see him made the small hair at the back of her neck stand up, the skin prickling.

She rounded her desk, glad to have the heavy piece of furniture between them, watched him stop and cast as slow glance down on the chairs in front of her desk as if he considered the pros and cons of sitting down. He elected to remain standing.

"I'm sorry," he said, the one thing she hadn't expected him to say. She wondered if she believed it, sincere though it had sounded.

"I couldn't contact you another way."

She wanted to sit down, her knees didn't feel too steady, but she suspected it would put her on the back-foot even more. She thought about what he'd said.

"No one's stupid enough to bug a _law firm," _she pointed out. "Or tap my phone. If anything, my home is less safe."

He smiled, thinly and arrogantly, shook his head. "There's no legal way to use the information gathered like that, I know. Doesn't make it safe. Fewer people here, fewer smart devices and we're high up. I can control this environment. In your office? No."

She considered it, realised she would have to take him at his word. The thought of being monitored in her office was disquieting. She'd suspected it, like anyone with eyes to see, but Pearce's casual confirmation of it was still a blow she hadn't expected.

"You're here because of my John Doe," she said. "He hasn't been talking. Not even to me."

Pearce glanced away for a moment, then said, "How is he?"

"You don't know?" she asked in honest surprise. "He was transferred to Palin a week ago. He's recovering well from his injury. I could help him better if he talked to me."

"What are they charging him with?"

"Well, he stole a police helicopter," she said, raising her eyebrows. Surely he'd been there? "He flew it into a no-fly zone during a real or at least suspected terror attack. Then _you _landed that helicopter on the parking lot of Holy Cross hospital."

"That's all?"

She frowned. "That's enough. The investigation is ongoing, but the police can't seem to find much on him. I've had people look into it, too, but so far? Not much. Not even a name, not much of a digital footprint. He's not in any of Blume's databases either. He's a fixer, that's obvious, and a good one, too. But police can pin him to few concrete cases."

"You're his lawyer, get him off."

"I'm not a magician," she snapped. "Your friend… I assume that's what he is? Well, your friend has done everything right, in terms of staying under the radar, but then he did that little stunt with the helicopter and tied himself to you. Nothing I'll say can ever change that. And yours is the head everyone wants on their wall."

Pearce thought for a moment. "He's taking the fall for Millenium Point."

"What did you expect?" Rasha snorted an unimpressed laugh. "No one seems able to figure out what happened, but it's making no one look good. Blume and their BCP, the police and all other authority. People died, the building is in ruins. Of course they need a scapegoat. If you want to surrender yourself, be my guest."

He didn't even answer that last, tired line, she hadn't expected him to, but she saw a slight softening in his expression, perhaps brought on by some memory he hadn't completely processed yet.

She decided to push, she owed him no courtesey.

"You where there, you were at the heart of it. What happened?"

He surprised her with a slight laugh, self-depreciating, but not entirely without human warmth. "I was just living there."

"That's all?" she said, chuckled at the repetition despite the situation. It seemed to briefly put them on eye-level.

Pearce took a breath, "It's all you're going to believe. Your client had nothing to do with it. He just helped me out and he took a bullet for his trouble."

He took a step forward, to the edge of the desk and the distance seemed to shrink away.

"The investigators won't find the truth about what happened at Millenium Point, because they're not meant to. But you can work with that."

"I don't quite follow," she said slowly, though she suspected she did.

"Well, if what your client says isn't convenient, perhaps it'd be better to let him go?"

"The people you mean, they're powerful. How do I know they won't just silence him?"

"Because you'll make sure of it. Make everyone understand that killing him would kick up just more dirt. Letting him off with a lenient sentence, that's the way to go. He'll stay quiet, no one else needs to go under in that disaster. I can give you the ammunition. But I want you to give your John Doe a message from me."

"Which is?"

Pearce studied her face and she wondered what he was seeing there, if he could tell just how deeply unsettled she was. Of course she'd known he was involved in some way. Her client had stolen a police helicopter for him, Pearce himself had carried him into the ER. She had seen the footage in flawless HD. It had been the first time in a long while to get a reading of Pearce from Profiler. The first clear picture in years, but it was nothing compared to the real man.

The mystery of him might, to some people, hold a certain fascination. The reality of him, standing just a few feet away, at the heart of her home, was something far less romantic.

"Tell him he doesn't have to protect me," Pearce answered. "If he needs to sell me out, tell him to do it. Fingers are pointing at me anyway, his won't make a difference."

"How much does he know about you?"

"Less than he thinks, more than I'd like," he sighed, seemed amused at some private joke or memory she wouldn't get him to share.

"He's your responsibility," Pearce said and the sinister undertone kept sliding back in, wrapping around her nerve ends, pitch-black and choking and she realised why he really was here, even before he said it.

"Something bad happens to him, I'll have to come back."

Rasha felt her throat close down with sudden dread, acutely aware of her son sleeping so peacefully so very close. She put a hand on the desk and leaned forward, fixed Pearce with her gaze, made no effort to hide her fear, because she knew he must have seen it too often to be fooled. She made no effort to hide her determination, either.

"I know why came here," she said and had to laugh at the realisation. "It's the oldest tactic in the book. To show you can, isn't it? To show that you can walk right into my son's room any time you like."

She pressed her lips together, tried to control her breathing. The accusation hadn't left a scratch in Pearce's facade as he waited for her to finish, allowed her imagination to run wild, create scenarios far worse than anything he could ever envision himself.

"What happens if he dies?" she asked. "You said it, he's a target for… whoever is behind everything. If they decide to silence him, or if the judge doesn't listen… I cannot control all that. What then? What are you going to do? Come back here and slaughter all of us?"

Pearce seemed to contemplate the possibility, no hint of amusement in him now. Somewhere, she knew, there had to be the seams he'd used to stitch himself together like this. No man just woke up one morning and _was, _no, the man before her had spent decades _becoming. _Becoming _this_, she had only been given a glimpse of it and it was already more than she wanted to see.

"No," he said finally. "_You _won't die._"_

He moved, only to pull his hand out of his pocket, but she flinched anyway, felt herself caught and exposed, as if the moment had already come. Too many variables were in this, she couldn't ever protect her John Doe, not if all the forces were gunning for him in the way Pearce had implied.

Without looking down, Pearce tapped something on the phone and she was distantly aware of her own phone announcing it had received a message, the tiny sound working itself into he consciousness without its attributing significance.

"I've texted you the link to a cloud storage," Pearce said. "Use it."

"I can't guarantee anything," she said tonelessly. "You know that, right? Putting pressure on me… that's not…"

She faltered. He knew all that and he'd come anyway, he'd decided it would be she he leant on and it was already done. Nothing she said would make him retreat now. He didn't care that she couldn't do what he demanded of her.

Pearce made no reply, he certainly had no reason to alleviate the fears he'd so carefully come to instil.

"Tell your client…" Pearce started and she didn't know the name of the emotion in his voice just then.

He paused, seemed at a loss for words for just a second and the searing weight of his gaze left her for a moment before it returned to her. Another glimpse, perhaps, but as far she was concerned it was too little and too late.

He said, "Tell him _thank you_."

It took a long time for her mind to settle, after he'd left. It took the weeks and months through the trial and the sides of her she hadn't known she possessed, using the information Pearce had given her.

It took the look on her client's face, who otherwise carried himself with a distant, sardonic amusement, but he looked unguarded for just a moment. It took all that to realise that Pearce hadn't really been saying _thank you_. He'd been saying _good-bye_.

* * *

_End of _Gunmetal Sky: Beauty and the Beast_

* * *

**Author's Note: **Would you look at that, I finally figured out what happened to Jordi after Firewalker. Kind of.

* * *

**Revised on 31/Oct/2016**


	61. Gunmetal Sky: Dave

**Recap: **In the story Black Magic, BlackMage is a decoy persona Aiden used to run. Marcus Brenks, Damien's son joined DedSec at some point before 2022 and the events of Harbinger. Marcus was brainwashed using a variant of bellwether. He was killed by Aiden in Firewalker.

**EDIT:** Thanks to Ubi springing that fucking WD 2 on me like this, I had to change the name of "_Josh_ Wyland" to "Derek Wyland" to avoid confusion. Thanks for that. Assholes.

* * *

[summary: what is a hacker without a network?]

**_Gunmetal Sky: Dave**

* * *

He's had two lives, once, but the world moved on and now he's got to count himself lucky to still have _one_ of them left, but it's not a good feeling. He's living on borrowed time, every morning when he gets up, he wonders if this is going to be his last. And every evening when he gets home, he wonders if he'll be allowed to sleep throughout the night or if it will be interrupted by a raid. Corporate Police breaking down his door and dragging him from his bed.

He doesn't actually know what's happened to the others. He's only watched them disappear, first in one fell swoop the night Millennium Point was set ablaze and then, in the days that followed, one after the other went dark. He likes to believe not all of them were caught, that some found their way underground, took off their masks and threw away their phones. Perhaps they're biding their time, ready to regroup and resurrect. Perhaps their's, like his, safety measures were good enough.

He doesn't _know_, and besides, what good does it do? Blume has scattered DedSec, whether its members are in jail or dead or merely hiding doesn't seem to make that much of a difference.

It's hard to think, some days. DedSec is gone and he's just an IT engineer at Blume, who would be broken if anyone ever found out about that other life.

He thinks there is some irony in things, though. He's worked his way through the rank and file at Blume, always mindful of how much of his skills he truly showed, careful to be good, but not too good. He's reliable, deeply apolitical. Everyone knows, Derek Wyland is no revolutionary, but if you want to get some tricky piece of coding done, he's your man. You can set him to work on bellwether and he'll treat it like nothing other than a challenging project. Derek Wyland does not _care._

Derek Wyland does not ask what happened to his predecessors, not because it scares him, but because it's unimportant to him. _Someone _obviously had this job before him and now they don't. It's all that matters to him. He likes to sit behind his monitor, but he's not dangerous, not like the people before him. He's no Raymond Kenney, unfortunately not as dead and buried as everyone would like to think. He's no Angela Balik, either, whose rotting corpse — or so they say — has yet to turn up.

Derek Wyland is just _that guy._

Derek Wyland thinks he should get an Academy Award for his performance.

Lately, it's been starting to break down, but it might just be his mental state eroding. He's under constant pressure. Any day, he thinks, any moment, it could happen. Someone at Blume applies the right filters to his private data, to his movement profiles, to his online searches. He's good, he's better than Blume knows, but he's not perfect. Somewhere in the twisting paths of the internet, there's a line of bread crumbs connecting him to DedSec. Somewhere out there, there's the one treacherous message that calls him Dave.

So what's he to do? He can't go looking for that information himself. If there's no alert raised, surely that'll do it. And what would he do if he found it? Erase information from the internet? You'd have to laugh, but it feels a lot like crying.

He can't wait it out, either, perhaps he should, but he can't. His nerves are not glass fibre, they can't take the load. He makes a mistake instead. That's how he thinks of it. A mistake. In a few months, he thinks it will come back and bite him, it'll tear him down and he'll wish to a god he does not believe in that he hadn't done it, but foresight doesn't work like that for him.

He takes all the precautions he can think of, he makes sure to deviate from his routines so slightly, the monitoring software won't notice. There's always _some _variability in people's behaviour, there's always a level of irrationality. He's programmed part of it himself and improved the results. Sometimes people make no sense, but it's hard for a perfect logic system to account for it. Wriggle room. He think of Raymond Kenney and Angela Balik and the other Daves, he thinks of what DedSec was all about and wonders if 'wriggle room' is all that's going to be left of personal freedom when this revolution is through.

He starts reaching out into the depth of the internet. Someone has to be there, someone still willing to buy what he's got to offer. Someone he can reconnect with, perhaps — he has moments like that — he can start again, become someone again who can make their voices heard. Perhaps there'll be more than 'wriggle room'.

He's never liked fixers, mercenaries and hitmen, the lot of them, loyal to the money they are paid. Ironically, it's their lack of affiliation that's meant they come out of the great changes — not unscathed, exactly, but by the end of it all, he thinks fixers will still be fixers. There'll always been a market for their services, not even Blume wants them eradicated, they'll leave a shadow world, part a distraction and part a convenience, both useful for different things.

It doesn't mean individual fixers aren't going down in the fray, or that some of them pick an affiliation and stick with it. On the whole, though, the fixers make it to the other side. He rather hates them for that, especially.

A few days ago, his car broke down. It's not _quite _just broken, he's fiddled with it a little in the privacy of his own garage. He thinks if he exposes himself to be approached, potential allies will find an opportunity to do so. He's well paid, but he's Regular Joe enough to take the L when his car isn't up to the task. It's something he would do, so there he is.

It's an old L train, chattering loudly and on bad suspension. They are only still running on a handful of lines, but this one leads right past a bookstore where he likes to browse, so it makes sense he's in it.

He leans his head into the window and lets his gaze pass over the sunset lit cityscape, a moment of quiet. Whatever bad things will happen, they'll do at a station, not while the L is still moving. He's _safe _while the L is still moving.

Someone is sitting across from him, the whole width of the aisles between them and he doesn't at first realise why his attention shifts at all. His mind is in so many places at once, scattered all over, always looking for the trap, so the woman across from him, staring at him intently cannot escape him.

He gives her a frown, perhaps too much already, betraying his guilt. She's young, beautiful if she wants to be, short-cropped hair, bleached blonde in contrast to her dark skin. She's dressed like the street in a cheap B-movie, dreamt up to look like a cross between a hooker and a businesswoman by someone who's never really seen either.

"Hi, Dave," she says, voice surprisingly full as she arches her head back a little until it touches the glass window at her back.

A tiny countdown starts to tick at the back of his mind, the time until the L reaches the next station, the time when he won't be _safe _for a little while.

"Don't panic," she continues and he's pretty sure he doesn't look panicked, because he doesn't feel it. She's intriguing, but he can't make sense of her.

"I'm BlackMage," she adds and gives a wave with a lace-gloved hand.

He has to laugh at it, even through the layer of makeup on her face and the distracting timbre of her voice, he knows she cannot be that old.

"You started early," he points out. "What were you? Ten?"

She laughed, a deep, full-throated laugh, irritatingly genuine.

She shrugs, drifts her gaze away from him to study something above and behind him. He doesn't need to look to know she's staring at the cameras there, studying them like insects under glass.

"You think BlackMage is only one guy," she says, chuckles a little and amends, "One girl, one whatever? You really do? Dave? How many of _you _are there?"

_Just the one, _he thinks sourly.

He doesn't like her saying that name, but he doesn't know why it would. BlackMage, Dave, DedSec, the vigilante, it's all the same in the end. Throw these terms around enough and maybe the filters started considering you spam. It was a surprisingly popular hobby among certain circles, trying to figure out how to trip up the system and raise an alert over nothing.

"It's safe to talk," she says. "For a little while. I'm just the messenger."

He watches her, guesses he has to the next stop, no more, but he's tired of jumping through hoops without knowing if they are there at all.

"Who sent you?"

She smirked. "Can't you guess?"

He frowns, feels the expression dig into his face and stay there.

"If its safe to talk, then talk," he says. "Don't give me the runaround, I've had a long day."

"A long few weeks, I imagine," she offers and there's something close to gentleness in her now. She uncrosses and recrosses her legs, one over the other, aims the silver-tipped heel of her left shoe at him and wags it playfully.

"It's been like that for all of us."

"Who. Sent. You."

"Raymond Kenney," she says, after a tiny hesitation that betrays the lie.

He isn't sure why she would be lying, though. She's not Blume, she's a hacker, pretending to be that prankster BlackMage, even if she took over the mantle from someone else. It could _all _be a lie, but to what end?

"No," he states.

"It's true," she says, pulls a grimace. "Just… not directly."

From one moment to the next, it's too much, he's too tired and too annoyed and too… everything.

"It's the vigilante, right?" he just shrugs. "I don't care anymore. DedSec declared him persona non grata, but we have no DedSec anymore. He and Kenney are tight anyway, everyone knows it."

He fixes her sharply, trying to skewer her with his gaze, he doesn't expect to impress her much. He's a washed out hacker without resources and his fortune hanging by a thread. He's a Blume IT engineer and he's the enemy. It doesn't matter which she sees, neither will intimidate her.

"What does he want?"

She takes her time again, glances to the side and stares out the windows as if there's anything interesting there.

"A way in," she says then, turns her face back to him, expression serious for once.

"Into Blume," he has to say it aloud to make it real.

"You're pretty high up," she points out. "No one knows your dark secret, yet, but it's waiting to be discovered. Why not capitalise while you still can?"

"Because it's his fault and I'm vindictive," he offers.

It's becoming a well-known saying among former hackers. Millennium Point… the turning point, a before and after, because that night everything came crashing down even while the skyscraper remained standing.

Marcus Brenks was the real mistake, though, the true turning point. No doubt brilliant, but too insane from the start, too determined, impossible to control, but devious about it. So much worse than Defalt in many ways, because Defalt at least you saw coming, but Marcus was a different animal, able and willing to play the long game. And then it all went up in flames, came crashing back down and he's left alone, wondering if it's worth picking up the pieces.

"Or because you're a coward."

"Nah," he dismisses it. "Don't care, you can't guilt-trip me into anything, I'm too fucking tired for that shit."

He thinks about it, makes up his mind in the time it takes for a disembodied voice to announce the next stop. BlackMage gets ready to leave, slips to her feet and holds her balance despite the heels and ridiculous attire on the shaking train.

"Is that your answer?" she asks. "For real?"

He looks at her, sees the doubt there, as she's searching for something to say and he likes that he's managed to unsettle her at least a little. He lets her doubt, because it's so hard to remember what certainty felt like.

"Oh no no," he says as if it's obvious. "Of course I'll help you. But it's your funeral."

"You're in, it's all that counts," she points out, face lighting up. The train rattled to a halt and she gave him a conspiratorial wink before she turns and steps to the door in the moment before the train stops and the doors open and she steps out.

* * *

She watches as the L departs the station, then casually wanders down the platform, finds the stairs to get back down to street level. It's never been a good neighbourhood, even the ever-present ctOS cameras don't make you feel safe in this area. Here, they are merely voyeuristic, just watching, just recording, documenting the dark sides of humanity to use against them later.

The people in power still know how to trick the system. They buy their moments off camera, they cheat and lie and trick and get away with it. ctOS isn't corrupt in the way other systems are, but it's never going built a Utopia and besides, Utopia always seemed rather dystopian to her personally.

She stalks over to the car parked in the shadow across the street and slips into the passenger seat in the dark, angles her shoulder into the seat so she can look the vigilante over, making no attempt to hide her scrutiny.

"I think he's good to go," she reports.

"You sure?" the vigilante asks. One hand rests loosely on the lower rim of the steering wheel, fingerless gloves leave his fingers stand out pale in the dark, like bare bones. The phone rests in his other hand, display darkened as he views the world through the lenses.

He barely looks at her, but she's learned through the years not to assume he misses anything.

"Pretty sure, but he's not on top of it. Looks he hasn't slept for a few weeks. I don't know… you don't ask me these things, but I don't think he's going to hold up."

The vigilante grunted noncommittally. "Question of time," he says and the low rumble of his voice sends a pleasant shiver down her spine. "He doesn't need to hold up forever, just long enough."

He shifts a little and looks at her, tilts his head and a distant streetlight finds his face, does nothing to soften the harsh edges of it and the shadows linger around his eyes and down the sides of his mouth.

She's not _strictly speaking _that attracted to older men. She's not _not _attracted to them. It's… well, it depends on the man. Sometimes on the woman, too. Sometimes merely on her mood. The vigilante, however, is never _not _tantalising.

"Do I keep an eye on him?" she offers.

"No," he shakes his head, thinks about it. "Gives ctOS another pattern to analyse, can't burn him before we got in. Keep away."

He fixes her from narrowed eyes. "I mean it, no one goes to him twice."

She huffs, or at least pretends to, and slides a little down in the seat.

"Okay, whatever you say," she agrees. She's not exactly _angry _at the decision. It's not like Blume wouldn't take her down if they got wind of her. She's not a big fish, but Blume's got a fine net and a reputation for not sparing the by-catch.

"You know," she starts. "You need to kick back and relax once in a while, too." She waves a hand in the air. "Forget all about this, for an hour or so."

She looks at him and smiles, "Would do you good."

She's surprised by the apparition of humour in his expression, a smirk creasing his face. So she assumes she's not going to instantly lose her hand when she slides it up his knee and over the hard muscle of his thigh.

If there's a reaction he keeps in check, he's doing it too quickly for her to do more then merely surmise its presence. She smiles, knows where this will go if she keeps it up and turns her groping hand into a more friendly pat before she takes it back.

"You ever up for that," she says casually. "You know where to find me."

The vigilante quirks an eyebrow up, seems more amused than enraged and she'll count that as a win. It's the most she's ever gotten from him anyway and it's beginning to be a game of sorts. She's not so starved for affirmation she'll take his rejection to heart and she's never quite sure he really isn't interested either. It'd do him good, loosen up a bit, but she'd rather keep his goodwill than get laid. He's a special case like that.

His expression settles back into a faint scowl, drilling into her gaze and he says, "Actually, it's better I don't."

When she doesn't react, he adds, "Know where to find you."

He leans away from her, takes both hands to the wheel. "You should get out of Chicago while you can."

He smirks again, just a little. "Clean up your act, give them no reason to look."

"Hmm," she comments faintly. Thinks of the jokes she could make, about liking an audience, about being a damn fine sight to behold anyway, but the impulse just withers away.

She sidles forward in her seat, opens the door and gets out. Her heels click on the hard asphalt, louder than the quiet humming of the vigilante's electric car.

Her phone announces a money transfer. She knows she needs to take care of it soon, hide the money and its trails as well she can, but she has a few moments to herself before she does. She enjoys the night and the cool air as she turns away and walks in the shadow beneath the L tracks, realising she plays a small part in all of this and when the vigilante talks about burning people, she's never sure if she's one of the ones he cares about at all.

Sometimes she wonders if _he _even remembers who is who in all of this and she's just a little glad it wouldn't be her headache to have.

* * *

_End of _Gunmetal Sky: Dave_

* * *

**Revised on 31/Oct/2016**


	62. Picture Perfect

**Author's Note: **I wanted to hold off posting this until after Gunmetal Sky, but that one needs a lot more work before another chapter is ready. Besides, it seems appropriate to post this on Lena's birthday (fictional people's birthdays are the only ones I remember, actually, it's embarrassing.)

* * *

[summary: there's a moment in time, right before everything changes]

[takes place in october 2012, after the merlaut job]

**_Picture Perfect**

* * *

The sun still had enough strength to take the sting out of the autumn wind. The playground was filled with children, enjoying their freedom while their parents soaked in the warmth, strung up on benches all around the perimeter.

"So," Nicky said in a tone of voice Aiden thought he recognised and didn't like, but he was relaxed and lethargic, unwilling to care if she dragged him into an argument. Besides, she sounded more playful than anything, so perhaps he was going to be all right after all.

"If you're out of a job — whatever job that is — you realise you've got to make up for standing us up three weekends in a row."

"You know what my job is," he said. "Internet stuff." Which sounded a little flimsy to his own ears, so he added, "And cars. I had that bouncer gig, but the club's closed for renovation. I'm completely free."

Nicky laughed.

Aiden glanced at her from the side, was relieved to see her smile hadn't faltered in the least. She wasn't angry at him and she didn't look like she was going to press him for details.

"I need you next weekend," Nicky said. "I'm in charge of this cheerleader group's anniversary, it'd be good if I don't have to pay a babysitter."

"I can do that," he said. "There's a game on saturday, we can go and then have some pizza, watch a horror movie."

Nicky chortled. "Right, no horror movies, but I'm okaying the rest. So we got a deal?"

Aiden slipped down a little on the bench, pushed his shoulders into the dry wood and sighed, let his eyes fall closed against the soft glare of the sun.

"No horror movies," he repeated dutifully. "I'll be there."

He sensed Nicky's grin spread, felt her shift and then she smacked his knee as she got up.

"Tell you what, I'm heading to Brewed Delight across the street. Do you want anything?"

"Coffee," he said. "And cheesecake. Definitely cheesecake."

He opened his eyes, caught sight of Nicky's thoughtful look as she glanced over the playground and took stock of her children's location, seemed to consider for a moment if it was worth calling them back, then she said, "I wonder where you put all of it. I really do," she remarked, only half-joking. "Don't lose them."

"I would never," Aiden said, all hilarity aside as he met Nicky's gaze. She nodded, to him or to herself, then headed off to the café.

Jacks was not far away from the bench in the sand. He'd been playing with a group of other children, some sort of who can swing highest contest, but their attention span had faltered before a winner could be determined and some of the children had ran off. For a while now, Jacks had been on his own, though, quietly and patiently building something in the sand. At first, Aiden had thought it was a castle, but as time passed, it looked more and more like some kind of rocket launch facility.

Watching Jacks' small face set in concentration, Aiden wondered what went on inside his head, tried to remember what it had been like for him at that age, to be so perfectly absorbed in some self-appointed task that somehow meant the world.

Lena…

His phone buzzed in his pocket, not for the first time that day and Aiden felt his good mood drip away with every artificial noise and the irritating vibrations against his hip. He should've turned it off, he had only himself to blame for not doing it.

He pulled the phone out, stared at the name bare of all surprise. He almost rejected the call, turned the phone off the way he should've done all along, but that would only prolong the problem.

He picked up the call, "I told you we were done."

He cleared his throat, stumbling over the rasp of his voice in his throat. It wasn't even anger anymore, he thought, it was just some vague feeling of annoyance, the kind you reserved for a persistent mosquito before you smeared it across the wall.

_"Are you serious?" _Damien asked, sounded exactly as Aiden felt and perhaps that was the only thing they still had in common. _"How stupid are you?"_

"I ask myself that, too," Aiden said. "But I'm rectifying it. I'm not working with you again. Get it into your head."

He tried to calm himself and added, "And stop calling," he added.

_"I would, if you listened to reason for once," _Damien said. _"We aren't done with the Merlaut." _

"No, _you _aren't. You fucked it up, you clean it up. If they're on your trail, it's not my problem."

_"And what do you think will happen if they catch up to me? I wasn't on-site, my boy, that was all you." _

The anger at the memory clawed its way up Aiden's throat, ill-at-ease in the warmth, beating up against the sound of children's laughter. He'd never wanted Damien there, not even when they were still partners, but it was becoming hard to bear.

"Are you threatening me?" Aiden asked sharply.

_"I'm telling you it's not over," _Damien hissed. _"I'm telling you we need to work together." _

Aiden only shook his head, gave a bored sigh and said, "No, we don't. Working together has got us into this mess. You're on your own, Damien."

On the other end of the line, Damien huffed, paused for a moment and the effort it took to compose himself traveled through the line like subliminal messaging.

_"I apologise," _Damien said, voice positively dripping with sarcasm. _"It was all my fault and I'm sorry. There, I said it. Can you now get your head out of your ass and think for a moment? Like the adult you pretend to be?"_

Aiden almost laughed, but pushed the sound down. It wouldn't send the correct message. "I could say that you've got to mean it, too," he pointed out. "But I don't really care if you do. Don't call me again."

He spotted Nicky with a paper bag heading towards him. It irritated him, because now he had to find a balance between the expression he showed her and the tone of voice he needed to use with Damien.

"If you call again, I'll come find you."

_"And do what? Beat up on me? Because that'll prove me wrong?" _Damien demanded and snorted a mocking laugh.

"Because it'll shut you up," Aiden snapped and took the phone down, hung up before Damien had a chance to say anything else. Aiden glanced up and gave Nicky a quick smile before he concentrated on the phone again. He flipped through the phone, blocked all of Damien's numbers. Of course that'd barely slow him down for long, but he could look into it once he got home.

Nicky set the bag down on the bench.

"Angry ex?" she inquired.

"I guess," Aiden scowled.

Reaching into the bag, Nicky grinned. "That bad, huh? Do you want me to have a chat with her? Give her a little slap on your behalf?"

He chuckled at the thought, then shook his head. "I'll manage. Let's not talk about it. _Please."_

She laughed again.

She lifted out a plastic covered cheesecake and looked out over the playground and froze a little when she spotted Lena on top of a climbing structure, where she leaned to a wooden bare rather nonchalantly. She seemed to be talking to herself, but was most likely telling a story to the toy lamb strapped to her back with Nicky's silken shawl.

"You were watching them, right?" she asked, one eyebrow raised sceptically.

He followed the direction of her gaze. "'course," he said, and reached out a hand to point at the structure. "She took a clever route when she climbed up, used the trapeze rings before she swung over to the wall and that weird wooden balustrade thing. She's got good balance and hand-eye coordination. She's also pretty strong for her age, that's impressive."

Nicky looked down on him with her eyebrows raised sceptically high.

"I… don't really know what to say to that," she concluded.

"You don't want her climbing things, you tell her," Aiden added, but then smiled. "Don't worry. She's doing just fine."

Nicky sighed, but resolved to let it go, instead she looked over to Jacks, who had already spotted her and the cheesecake and had got up, jumped over with a gush of sand falling from his clothes.

"Raspberry!" he proclaimed eagerly, snatched up a piece and sat down on the bench. He would've used his hands, but Nicky sternly held a plastic fork in front of him and he relented.

"Lena!" Nicky called. "Come down _CAREFULLY _and get some cake!"

Lena saw her, grinned widely and waved, she called something back but her voice didn't quite carry so far, but the movement of her lips spelt it out as "I'll use the slide!"

Lena turned back and skidded across a swaying rope bridge and to the roof above the highest of the slides that wound a few times around a tall pole.

By the time Lena rushed over, Nicky was already distributing the cheesecake, she had handed over a few pieces to other children as they wandered over. Aiden had slipped to the edge of the bench, coffee in one hand, cheesecake in the other.

Lena wedged herself between Aiden and Jacks on the bench, but had to stay on the edge because of the lamb on her back, careful not to crush it.

"Aiden's going to watch you two guys next weekend," Nicky said. "Good idea?"

"I want to go to Pawnee!" Lena demanded.

"Pawnee?" Nicky asked and looked at Aiden across the children's heads, caught him pulling a grimace.

"It's late in the year for camping," he said. "It gets cold at night."

Lena's little face crunched up in consideration.

"I like Pawnee," Jacks remarked.

"I wanted to take you to a game," Aiden offered. "Have pizza and a… movie."

Nicky reached out behind the back of the bench and, wordlessly, smacked his shoulder.

"A funny movie!" Aiden clarified, laughing. "A totally age-appropriate movie!"

Lena turned to look at him. "Okay," she said. "But I like Pawnee better."

"We can go to a motel," Jacks offered reasonably.

"Would that be okay?" Nicky asked Aiden, clearly with an eye on money, though he was careful to never imply he was short and, in fact, tried to make sure she knew she could come to him if she needed any. Nicky, however, tended to assume it was tight because of his long list of unsteady jobs. He wasn't going to tell her what a good fixer made in a day, she'd know what they were doing for that kind of pay-check.

He sighed, "Yeah, it's fine. It's just… that whole Neanderthal stuff."

"What's Neanderthal?" Lena asked.

"It means your uncle is scared when he has to leave the big city," Nicky explained, chuckling.

"Oh," Lena said and thought about it. She transferred the cheesecake into her other hand and slipped her skinny arm under his, tucking his arm close to her side.

"I'll watch out for you."

"Me, too," Jacks announced.

"Alright, I've got nothing to fear then," Aiden said. "Let's go to Pawnee."

* * *

_End of _Picture Perfect_


	63. Satellite

**Author's Note:** Emoticons... aren't... really... my... thing. I have no idea what I'm doing.

**Recap: **Bloodhound appears throughout some of the present-day stories. It is the CPD task force for hunting the vigilante.

* * *

[takes place in summer 2016]

**_Satellite**

* * *

Late at night, the Quinkie's didn't have a lot of traffic. On the eastern end of the Wards, it catered to shift workers to and from work, but mostly, it served as a meeting place for criminals, for junkies and their dealers, pimps and whores. In winter, it would be a few minutes of warmth for the homeless who were sober enough to save up for a cup of coffee. That was all it was, the gang who controlled the area hung around outside, a watchful eye on people who came and went, but they didn't give anyone any trouble who wasn't asking for it. They paid some extra attention to the sports car as it swung around the corner and onto the expansive parking lot outside the Quinkie's. The car stopped close to the door, precisely parked in the narrow open spot there, angled so the door could swing open wide enough to allow the driver to get out with a casual levered motion. The 'bangers eyed him and, without exchanging even a glance, settled back into what they had done before.

Aiden Pearce walked into the Quinkie's with his face cast down to his phone, cycling through the cameras and scrolling through the profiles of the people in his immediate vicinity. He was aware of the group of teenagers around a table, clearly a case of munchies. They didn't even notice anyone else was there. A few workers scattered alone on other tables. Profiler identified a fixer in a corner, but by the time Aiden reached the counter, the background check confirmed the man to be harmless.

"A double espresso," he said without looking up. His phone told him the employee currently turned to the coffee maker was a recently divorced alcoholic who almost certainly had killed his wife's cat in an act of revenge. He'd been working double shifts and spending the rest passed out drunk at home. If he even looked at the customers he served, he certainly didn't remember them.

"Thanks," Aiden said anyway as he paid the espresso with the swipe of a finger and took the small cup with him to a nearby table, picking up a handful of sugar packets on the way. From here, he covered both exits of the restaurant, but he himself was partially hidden behind a pillar, an easy cover in the unlikely case he needed it. He set the phone down on the table in front of him, kept it in his sight, but leaned back into the plastic upholstery of the bench, dumping sugar into the coffee.

When the Quinkie's chain had bought the place, they had gutted the building so its inside looked practically identical to every other Quinkie's in the country and probably the rest of the world, too. The view through the window, though, hadn't changed as much. The pay-phone was gone, of course, it had always been vandalised on a regular basis and when the times changed, it had simply never been replaced. There was still a stump where it had been.

He wondered if he was setting himself up like this. He came here too often even though he knew just how deadly habits could be. They made him predictable, gave his enemies the option of setting tripwires and traps into his path. He had too many enemies. He had _made _too many, he wasn't sure it counted as a talent.

He took a sip from the espresso, let the strong dark liquid run down his throat and enjoyed the tiny kick when the caffeine hit. The coffee used to be better here, too.

It wasn't a _large _risk, making this the meeting place. The hard parts were behind him already, finding the weak link in Bloodhound's armour and then using that to pry them open. He'd had to pull two all-nighters to bring his offer to the table, but that was it.

Checking the time, he reached for the phone again and pinged the wifi bug. If everything was as he had planned, it should be live by now and he wasn't disappointed. He didn't do anything else, he'd attack Bloodhound's closed network from home, where he had the more powerful hardware.

First, he'd need to conclude the deal. His phone announced her arrival a full minute before she walked through the door. The woman looked like any other member of the place's clientele. Visibly overworked and with the edge of a work coat still hanging out of the large handbag she carried over her shoulder. She wasn't an illegal, CPD wasn't corrupt enough to hire illegals to clean their offices, or at least Aiden hadn't found any he could use. She did, however, have a cousin in the country who _was. _Aiden had spent several weeks reading her emails and listening to some of her conversations until he'd been sure of their situation. Enough so he could risk approaching her and be reasonably sure she wouldn't immediately tell her employers about it.

Aiden raised a hand to draw her attention and saw her tense when she spotted him, but she didn't hesitate before she walked to his table and slipped into the seat opposite him.

"I did what you said," she said. She looked Mexican, but her English was flawless.

"I know," he nodded. He gave her a quick, reassuring smile. "It's all good."

She blinked, gaze cast down to the hands folded in her lap. She swallowed, then forced herself to look up.

"My cousin…?"

Aiden picked the folded envelope from the pocket inside his coat, put it on the table and pushed it towards her. She seemed to feel caught, glanced over her shoulder and cast a questioning gaze around the room and the people on the other tables.

"Don't worry," Aiden said with some faint amusement. "That's most of the business this place gets."

She flicked her gaze back to him, nodded, but snatched the envelope up and stuffed it into her bag hastily.

"Now," Aiden said, pointed in the general direction of the envelope. "That's not a fake. That's the real deal. Welcome to America."

She kept looking at him. Her cousin had been keeping his head above water with a number of fake documents and haphazard hacks of ctOS from some college-kid hacker. Mostly, he'd just been lucky.

"And his wife?" she asked.

"Eligible for citizenship as a spouse," Aiden said and repeated. "It's not fake."

"Just…" she hesitated. "Just because of the bug?"

He'd read in her emails she didn't have a good feeling about it. CPD drilled into all their employees how important their closed networks were and it had left its traces on her. He wasn't entirely sure if the illegality of it bothered her or if she was just afraid to be found out. The only reason why she'd agreed at all, other than the desire to help her cousin, was because she couldn't quite grasp just how important that tiny bug was. To most people, these things just didn't seem significant enough. They'd learn, Aiden supposed, when it was too late and they realised DedSec had been right all along. For now, the system as it was played right into his hands. He wasn't going to question that.

"It's none of your concern," Aiden said.

He got up, pocketed his phone and picked up the coffee cup. He stayed by the table for another moment, close enough to tower over her in a subtle reminder and added, "Just forget you've ever seen me."

* * *

The dingy motel room was only lit by the computer screen, set up on the desk against the wall. Aiden leaned back in the creaky chair, shoved the pizza carton aside, still chewing on the last piece, but focussed on the screen.

It bothered him how easy it was to gain access to Nicky's phone, the laptop in the living room. Jacks was still using a tablet and while he'd obviously tried to secure it, it barely slowed Aiden down. Anyone with malicious intent would find all of them easy picking, but at least Aiden found no indication that they had been hacked. All devices had some viruses on them, but nothing truly dangerous.

Aiden hesitated, but eventually decided to leave everything the way he'd found it, it wouldn't do any real harm and he was already breaking all the promises he'd made to himself. Just being in the same city as them was putting them at risk. He knew how to trust his security measures, but he was also aware of their imperfections. He could drive himself mad, trying to plug every conceivable weakness and it would still never be enough. In his life, he knew how to deal with that uncertainty, but it was much harder to swallow when it when he had to expose his family to the same dangers.

He reached for the cup of coffee, downed the last few, cold gulps, grimaced a little at the taste, gave the cup a glare as if that'd make a difference. He put the cup away.

One of his enemies could have followed him, or perhaps it wasn't even necessary and they'd already known where Nicky and Jacks were. Bloodhound had, after all, there was no telling who else was aware. Certainly Blume must have an inkling, because he doubted Bloodhound would have found them without Blume's massive database and computing power. He had a feeling DedSec was watching him closely, but they'd not made a move for or against him after the ctOS blackout, so he'd been contentt to let them be, too.

If someone tried using his family as pawns would only lead to more bloodshed, he'd leave his enemies shattered in his wake, but he would never be able to guarantee Nicky's or Jacks's safety, if they were dragged back into the line of fire.

He wished Nicky had gone further. Gone to Mexico or Canada or even Ireland, but they were just a six hour drive away and staying with Kathleen. He'd feared it, part of him had always known Nicky hadn't understood the game even as it was played out around her feet. He loved that innocence, awed at her ability to preserve it throughout her life. He done so much, sacrificed so much just to give her that chance, to see it pay off felt like vindication. However, it made so many things so much harder, too.

Blume had firmly installed itself in all the major cities, of course, and this was no different than Chicago had been. An advantage for him, of course, in many ways. He walked under the radar, here as well at at home. Everything connected to ctOS was easy to access and manipulate to his advantage.

_Blume is watching you, _a graffiti said, sprayed on the wall of the motel around a ctOS camera. He could see it when he looked out the window. He'd checked in the camera and the way it was angled, it monitored not only the motel's parking lot, but also all of the doors and most of the windows on that side. After some thought, he'd decided not to close the blinds. his computer screen wasn't visible and his scrambler did the rest.

On the screen, Nicky was just finished typing up the concept for some well-to-do kid's birthday party. As she moved out of the way, the laptop's camera was angled almost perfectly to take in most of the living room, with the kitchen visible at the far end.

Jacks was helping Kathleen make dinner. He'd grown immensely in the few years Aiden hadn't seen him. He was slowly outgrowing his childhood, turning into a teenager. It was good to see him so at ease, smiling, joking, clearly enjoying what he was doing. He was doing great in school and he'd left therapy over a year ago, apparently happy and stable, according to both the shrink and the way he lived his life.

Bloodhound had installed an undercover agent in Nicky's vicinity. He lived just down the road and in the months before Aiden learned of his existence, made some inroads and befriended the Pearce family.

_Nolan White, 35, call-center agent, plays base guitar in a Beatles cover band, _his profile claimed.

Every instinct Aiden had dictated he needed to go for the throat with this guy, get him out of Nicky's life before he contaminated it and did any damage. It was one of the reasons he had come here at all, with all the risks that entailed. He stopped himself from doing anything rash, though. He'd been careful when he looked into Nolan and Nicky and he knew she wasn't aware anything was off at all. She didn't know and if Aiden had anything to say about it, she never would.

He caught a look at the time and minimised the window with the live feed. He sat up, picked up a headset and slipped it over his head while he waited for the programme to load. He'd got it through some of T-Bone's contacts, no one with DedSec connection would've been willing to leak this kind of thing in his direction.

"We are DedSec," he said and listened to the audio distortion laid over his voice. "Something something politics down with Blume."

The result wasn't perfect, but it didn't need to be, because there would not be a recording to check for authenticity.

Nolan had just started his cover job in the call centre of an online shop and Aiden had used the last few days to get access to their network, so it took only a moment until he received the feeds from their surveillance cameras, spotting Nolan already in his cubicle.

Aiden didn't like how many people where about, he didn't want witnesses for Nolan or even just a distraction, this had been too difficult and disgusting to set up, he was going to play it for all it was worth.

He took a look at the company's network and went through the different workstations, selected a bunch of them on the other end of the hall and let them crash. It took a few minutes until the supervisors had congealed around those terminals, but considerably fewer people were walking around where Nolan sat. He'd half stood up and glanced across the cubicle at the commotion, but then shrugged and sat back down.

Aiden accessed the camera on top of Nolan's screen and activated the man's microphone before he hi-jacked his system.

"What the…?" Nolan started when his computer turned unresponsive and the caller he'd had was disconnected.

The avatar of DedSec filled the screen and Nolan flinched back for a second, but then sat with calm composure, belying his cover story.

"We are DedSec," Aiden announced with somewhat more decorum than during his audio test before.

"I can tell," Nolan muttered. "I'm honoured, or something. What the hell do you want?"

"We know who you are."

"Really?"

"The CPD's task force Bloodhound has charged you with ingratiating yourself with Nicole Pearce. We know this. And we know why."

Nolan frowned, but otherwise his expression gave very little away. "Okay, let's say you didn't get the entirely wrong guy, what's it to you? Last time I checked, you hated Aiden Pearce as much as the next guy."

"That is between him and us. But we do not want a war at this time."

Nolan arched his brows. Far from rattled, or at least far from showing it, he actually leaned back in his chair and pretended to be vaguely disinterested. "And what's this, then? He outsourced this whole thing to you?"

"He does not know. We have our plans. You will do as we tell you."

Nolan nodded sardonically, "Sure, I will."

"He will not fall for your trap. We will not allow your further intervention."

Nolan bared his teeth, leaned forward again a little, toward the screen rather than a camera, the way most people did, focussed on the avatar as if they were speaking face to face.

"Why?" Nolan demanded.

Behind his own screen, Aiden waited, the inscrutable avatar seeming to watch Nolan's face.

"Because you have no choice," he said finally.

Nolan waved a hand in the air in front of him. "No, actually, this whole thing just got interesting. You see, like, this whole job hasn't been very fruitful. Not a beep of Pearce anywhere, just ordinary shit, just this terrible job and nothing else. So, if nothing had happened, well, I guess they'd have cancelled this thing soon enough. You showing up… well, honestly? It's unexpected, but it just means we're onto something. You messed it up, you know. I hope Pearce isn't too angry with you."

"You will not report this."

"Make me," Nolan challenged.

Aiden held his silence, then said, "A man with ten gigabytes of child pornography on his home computer does not get to make the rules."

It took Nolan an agonisingly long moment until it clicked through what he'd just been threatened with and his calm expression washed away into wide-eyed shock as true comprehension hit.

"I don't _have…" _

"Not yet," Aiden conceded. "But you are already registered in the relevant forums and everything is ready. That is why you will do what we tell you to. If you do, we will delete you again."

Nolan brought a hand up, rubbed over his forehead in sudden indecision, going from quietly self-assured to completely lost. His handlers at Bloodhound and CPD, they'd probably believe it was all a setup, those were the risks you ran when you meddled with hackers, but DedSec — Aiden — didn't need to allow this to be handled quietly.

"Are you ready to listen?" Aiden asked and made sure it sounded more rhetorical than anything.

Nolan glared, but nodded, muttered, "Shit."

"You will remain where you are and you will write reports stating Aiden Pearce does not show any interest in his family. You believe he does not know where they are. You believe he will not endanger them. You are certain that this is not the way to catch him. You will recommend your mission be terminated. Have you understood?"

"Shit," Nolan hissed. "I can't believe it. What's it to you?"

"Have you understood?"

"Yeah, was clear enough," Nolan spat. "How do I know it'll work? How… what about the porn?"

"We will know when the mission is cancelled. We do not betray our allies. We will know if you try to betray us. Do not think we make idle threats."

"Shit."

"We are watching," Aiden announced ominously, waited another moment, than stopped the video transmission, but kept the camera and mic open in case he needed to interfere quickly. If Nolan took his chances, Aiden would have to move quickly. He wasn't bluffing, the smear campaign was ready to go and he would make sure Nolan would never get to walk away, but it was second-best only. If Nolan risked it, Nicky would hear of it and Aiden wasn't entirely sure how affected she would be. She thought of Nolan as a friend, that much was clear from the emails and texts.

Aiden watched Nolan as he threw himself back in his chair, rotating his chair absent-mindedly as he tried to reach a decision. He kept rubbing his hand across his forehead, looking entirely miserable.

* * *

He would have to monitor Nolan for a lot longer than that, until his behaviour showed he was holding up his end of the deal, but as Aiden packed his few belongings he wasn't too worried.

On the screen, he could still watch Nicole, currently cross-legged on the couch and playing a game in the quiet of Kathleen being at work and Jacks in school. The camera was in the fire alarm above her, providing a panorama of her living room, the slightly wilting flowers on the window ledge, the bowl of fresh fruit and chocolate cookies on the couch table. He hadn't switched on the microphone on Nicky's computer, so the image was silently tranquil.

Aiden dropped the duffel bag on the bed and took the few steps back to the desk. He reached out, placed his fingers on the edge of the screen, but then stopped, lingered. He knew every contact he had with his family posed a risk. Him being in the same city as them was already dangerous. Him standing here and looking at them even more so. He should not do it, he'd had an excuse this time. It'd be better if he didn't go looking for another.

He snapped the laptop closed and put it into the bag, before he threw it over his shoulder.

He checked out of the motel and followed the sidewalk for a little while, subconsciously tracking the cameras around him, taking note of the people he passed and their threat value. The tourist couple looking lost in the shabby part of town, fairly low. The group of bored teenagers hanging out in a front yard, also low, they were carrion eaters, unwilling to attack prey unless it was already weakened. The homeless man shuffling who stopped across the street to watch him… slightly more so. He had a sick glow in his eyes, perhaps from some kind of drug, or its withdrawal, but he was too far away to make an attack work.

Aiden used his phone to check up on those people, but he didn't feel like he needed to. They were already transparent to the naked eye, what other secrets did he need from them?

He'd walked for about ten minutes before he came to tall, old brick building. It housed several prostitutes and their pimp, owned by some local crime syndicate. It was easy to spot even without relying on any technology, just going by the quality of cars parked along the street next to it.

A man stood by the steps leading up to the door, burly and bored, he was smoking without much enthusiasm, eye scrunched into slits as if the morning-blue sky was too bright for him already.

Aiden slowed down and pulled his phone out, opened profiler and checked the man. Gang-relations, various violence-related crimes on record, an outstanding fine for disorderly conduct… exactly what you'd expect from a brothel bouncer in this area. But Aiden was only passingly interested in him, his attention had been captured by the little black 336-TT. A quick scan revealed that it had been upgraded with an electronic lock, not common with this model, but quite welcome. Unfortunately, it was parked in plain view of the bouncer and chances were good he knew who it belonged to.

Aiden took a few more steps forward, getting into a better position, then scrolled through the bouncer's personal information. Apparently, he frequented a swinger's club whenever he had a weekend off… oh, make that a gay swinger's club.

Phone in hand, Aiden strode casually along the sidewalk, picking up the bouncer's cellphone signal and send him a text.

[Saw you the other night at Euphoria…(*_*)]

He waited, watched from the corner of his eyes until the bouncer pulled his phone out and stared at the screen. He seemed momentarily puzzled, lowered the phone to stare in the distance before he reached a decision.

_[How did you get this number?]_

[Barkeep owed me a favor. Don't be scared. (-_-;)]

Aiden left the sidewalk and stepped around the car, opened its unlocked driver's door and tossed his bag the passenger side.

_[What do you want?]_

[I liked what I saw. (^_-) Want to hang out next time?]

He slipped behind the wheel, glanced at the bouncer through the window and saw he'd wandered a little along the building as he texted. According to his body language, he wasn't particularly impressed by the come-on. Aiden shrugged slightly, it wasn't like he'd investigated him that much.

_[I don't know you.]_

The 336-TT's roared deeply as the engine ignited and he spotted the bouncer turn his head towards the noise in irritation.

[I know! Let's fix that!]

The small car was easy to get out of the narrow parking slot with a few quick jerks of the wheel. He pulled out into the street and hit the gas. The bouncer was lost from sight, too far gone even in the rear-view mirror.

[('ε')]

* * *

Despite the dark thoughts dogging him, the road-trip itself was shaping up to be an enjoyable break from the realities of his life. Gentle sun above, the air just warm enough he could open all the windows and let the head wind stroke his face and brush over the arm he left hanging loosely out the window. He caught himself singing along to the music, nodding his head and hitting the gas.

When the music abruptly stopped, he merely arched an eyebrow and waited for the half second it took DedSec to play their intro chime.

_"Did you think we would not know if someone used our programme?"_

"Do you think you found that backdoor into my system because you're that good?"

The pause was nearly imperceptible, maybe it wasn't even there, but Aiden thought he understood enough about human nature to recognise that, yes, DedSec _had _expected to take him by surprise. He'd invested enough work into creating a gap innocuous enough fro DedSec to fall for it without blowing his network wide open to any script kiddie who stumbled across it.

_"You once said you do not speak for us," _the distorted voice said. _"But you had no qualms using our voice." _

Aiden shrugged to himself, "You disagree?"

_"We have looked at Nolan White. We know he works for Bloodhound. We know he is close to your family. We understand you wish to protect them." _

"Good," Aiden remarked lightly.

_"But that is not the problem." _

"You don't like if someone else plays with your toys, I get it," Aiden said. "You should lock them up tighter."

_"You do not speak for us. We do not speak for you. We do not approve." _

Aiden glanced to where his phone was lying on the passenger seat, he reached for it and pulled it up to rest against the steering wheel.

"How much do you want?" he asked.

_"We are not mercenaries." _

Aiden had suspected as much, but he'd liked offering it, if only so he could imagine the exasperation in whoever at DedSec had pulled the short straw and was forced to contact him.

"So what do you want?" Aiden asked.

The smugness vibrated through the distortion, shivering like lightning in an overcast sky.

_"You owe us a favour." _

Aiden felt the smirk tug on the corners of his mouth, threatening to break through into his voice. He cleared his throat to cover it, paused as if unhappy. DedSec liked dealing in favours, it placed them outside the capitalism of mere fixers, whose loyalty and morality was negotiable, or at least understood to be so.

"Are you sure?" Aiden asked. "What if I'm not good for it?"

_"We know what you are," _DedSec asserted. _"We know which favour to ask of you and which not." _

Aiden chuckled.

"Do what you want," he said after a moment. "Now put my music back on."

_"We will remember," _DedSec declared, but had enough sense to draw out and after another second, the music resumed.

Of course they'd remember, Aiden had no doubt about that. He suspected DedSec had a neatly organised folder of his personal information stashed away somewhere. They might claim not to do it, but that wasn't how things worked in their world, or his. He couldn't stop them from doing it, but they certainly couldn't stop him from doing what he wanted once DedSec tried to cash in on it, either.

* * *

_End of _Satellite_

* * *

**Author's Note:** Remember the mission in Bad Blood where you have to recover a list of undercover agents? _And_ that Quinkie's used to be the Dogtown Café &amp; Diner, in case Aiden's nostalgia wasn't obvious enough.

Oh look! I'm taking a potshot at DedSec! Now why would I want to do that? (_Don't_ make me come to San Francisco, you wouldn't like it.)


	64. No Strings

**Warning: **Sex.

**Author's Note:** I'm having a few issues with the overall arc of Brilliancy. Donna's and Aiden's is _not _a "one true love" story. Aiden's not a celibate hero (because I'm shallow like that). I wanted sex in Femme Fatale but it didn't fit the narrative.

I also feel I haven't explored enough what it means to lead the life Aiden does, down on the daily grind level of things.

* * *

[summary: let's call it a creature comfort]

[this takes place in 2017]

**_No Strings**

* * *

Pleasure flashes up sharply along his nerve ends and dies down too quickly, dull slide of wet flesh, too numbed to be good. He pulls up to find a more satisfying angle, gets caught on the nails she's been slicing down his back and buttocks. Snarling, he catches her hands and pins them down by her side. Their rhythms don't match and the mattress is too soft, it cushions the beat of his hips, makes him growl deep in his throat in frustration.

There's a white noise hissing in his ears, but it's distant and too quiet. He can still hear himself think through it, so he drops his head, paints a wet, open-mouthed trail from her breast to the side of her neck. The tendon there jumps between his lips and teeth and her wrists strain in his grip, but she writhing away from him more than into it, every arch of her back a second too late or too soon.

He releases one of her hands, snaps his grip down to her waist, keeping her pinned as securely as the mattress let him. Immediately, it's better.

His next thrust makes his world shrink, pinpointed down to just heat and tightness. She's mewling, moans tipping every time he buries himself inside her.

Single-mindedly chasing his rush, he fucks her hard and careless, until he finds that breaking point he can fling himself from, rush of blood roaring in his ears, a crashing wave that empties his body and mind and draws the marrow from his bones, makes his muscles ache from the force of the exertion.

He doesn't let up, grinds into her for every meagre spark he can leech from her, every residue of bliss. She remains tense under him, writhing, and he's still riding that melting razor edge of pleasure, waiting for it to dip the wrong way and take him apart. He doesn't snap his hips back before it does, buries his face at the of her neck, panting and eyes falling closed.

She's still taut, still twitching and shifting. Her hand winds from from his lax grip and she turns her head to graze her teeth along his cheek.

He groans, knows it sounds displeased, but says, "You come?"

She matches his tone, though she's more breathless than he is.

"Almost," she says in needy whimper, rocking her hips into his deadweight.

He has to draw on some depleting reservoir of willpower against the lethargy branding up around him. He picks himself off her, slides a hand down her body and into. She bucks instantly, insides soft and quivering, she feels almost better this way, on the bare skin of his fingers and not through the muffling veil of the condom. Using the damn thing was easier than arguing, though.

He curls his fingers as he shifts his body down between her legs and spreads them wider, dips his head down and drags his tongue through her sex.

She fists her hands in his hair as she ruts her hips towards him. Close as she is, it doesn't take long to drive her back to the edge, make squirm and whimper. She shudders hard, small gush of liquid into his mouth and her thighs spasm closed around his ears, muffles her drawn-out cry and mumbling curse.

She goes limp in his grip, she only humps into him a little more, tiny, involuntary shivers, but she doesn't complain as he lets go of her and scoots to the side, lets himself drop there and lie still, listening the quietness as it peters out, breathing and heartbeat all back to normal far too quickly.

Obligation served, he extricates himself from her grip and from between her legs, crawls up on the side of the bed and lets himself sink into the too soft mattress and tangled sheets, letting lethargy draw over him like a blanket. He pulls the condom off and drops it to the floor, moans at the cool air on damp skin and the raw feeling shooting through him as he gives himself a few additional strokes.

They lay side by side in silence without touching. After a little while, Toni pulled her legs in and rolled to the side, over the edge and to her feet smoothly. She grunted a little and stopped abruptly, swaying just slightly from getting up too fast.

She stretched lazily, arms over her head, flexing her shoulders as she stands up. She's not tall, but athletic without much feminine softness, short hair standing off wildly.

After another moment, she picked up her bag from the floor, walked a few steps as she rifled through its contents until she retrieved a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

She dropped the bag and lit up, her back towards him as she took several long, leisurely drags.

Antonia Savi had just started as one of the few females in stock car racing when she had got herself involved in an insurance scam that ended her career before it could take off the ground. She'd moved to Chicago soon after, maybe to make a new start which hadn't worked out. She earned her living as a taxi driver, but barely scraped by on her day job alone. Good drivers were always in demand in Chicago, however, and it was how Aiden had found her, too. She had the skills and a certain casual disregard for the law. Aiden had hired her as a driver a few times, she was reliable and capable, with few affiliations with the wider Chicagoan underworld.

Still smoking, she cast a glance over her shoulder at him, let it drift over his sprawling body. She didn't seem too impressed by what she was seeing, but she'd gotten her itch scratched so, same as him. For anything extra, they both would need to find someone more professional, or emotionally invested. It was how their unspoken deal worked, after all.

He arched an eyebrow at her unabashed scrutiny and licked his lips. Her reaction was nearly imperceptible, the twitch of the muscles at the corners of her mouth threatening to turn into a smile. A tiny blush crept up her throat, but she turned away, took another drag from the cigarette, then stepped to the window and dropped it into the cup of coffee she'd put there earlier.

Without looking at him again, she gathered her clothes from the table by the window.

"I'm in the bath," she announced and walked through the door, tossed it closed behind her.

Chuckling a little to himself, Aiden let his eyes fall closed and nestled deeper into the sheets. They smelled of shampoo and sweat, sex fluids and frying fat — it wasn't a classy hotel. The wall to the bathroom was cardboard thick, he heard the pattering of the toilet, followed a moment later by the louder rush of water from the shower.

Aiden drifted for a little while, listening to the water, enjoying the warm heaviness of the afterglow overtaking his body. His mind was ticking at a slower pace, a lazy spiral of wandering thoughts, a respite from the _too sharp _and _too fast _of his normal mind.

He sometimes caught himself wondering if he should ask her out, perhaps talk about something other than a job he had for her. But in the end, it was much better for them both to just talk business and not talk at all, just rut in some cheap hotel room, or against the occasional alley wall or on the hood of a stolen sports car… his teenage self might have actually been impressed by this lifestyle.

It wouldn't be healthy to let her too close, he couldn't protect her when he needed her as a driver and anyone he hired was also always potential canon fodder or collateral damage. Besides, he was fairly sure she didn't even like him that much.

He rolled to his back, blinked, but at the last moment closed his eyes again instead of getting up as he'd intended. He could just stay here for a little while, take a nap, let the world move without him for once. It'd still be there in an hour.

The lulling sound of the shower threatened to pull him under, slipped through his sore mind like a caress, slower and gentler than anything he felt like doing with Toni.

When the sound of the water changed, Aiden snapped his eyes open, stared at the ceiling above him, feeling the tranquility he'd briefly bought slither away. It wasn't that he didn't trust her, he just didn't _not _distrust her. He'd have to do a lot more digging into her past and present life before he was willing to fall asleep with her.

Blindly, he reached for the bedside table, found his phone and held it at arm's length over his head. He wasn't sure if it was his turn to pay for the room or hers, but he transferred the small amount anyway.

By the time she left the bath, Aiden was already gone.

* * *

_End of _No Strings_

* * *

**Yeah**, yeah, another really short one. It's a phase, I can't seem to focus on more complex stuff these days. (I also just finished writing my thesis, so I guess I'm just burnt out in general.)

I looked into making the title some sort of pun on strings in terms of computer programming, but I don't understand it well enough to.


	65. A Friend in Need

**Fun fact: **So far, I've been meeting my daily word count to make the deadline for Brilliancy. I really want this to be cut and dry _before _Watch_Dogs 2 ruins everything.

**Recurring characters: **Tighe appeared in _Urban Jungle_ and _Black Sheep_, he used to be a friend of Aiden. Drago is mentioned in _Urban Jungle_ and _Dogtown_ as the leader of the Dead Men Walking, the gang Aiden was a member of as a teenager

* * *

[this takes place in spring 1997]

**_A Friend in Need**

* * *

The incessant ringing of the phone floated through the stylish, but untidy space of Aiden's slightly too expensive loft apartment. Midday sun filtered through the blinds on the roof windows, painted glaringly bright lines on the dusty floor and the strewn clothing.

The phone kept ringing, merciless, seemed to somehow increase its volume even though it lacked the capability for such a thing.

Aiden rolled to his back, managed to come to lie with a sunbeam cutting right across his eyes. He groaned, threw an arm over his face and tried to go back to sleep _anyway. _Anyone dumb enough to call him this early only had themselves to blame and besides, they'd soon give up. Indeed, in his sleep-fogged mind it was slightly puzzling that this hadn't already happened.

He groaned again, invested some energy to roll himself out of the sunbeam and came to lie on his stomach, face pressed into the cool smoothness of the satin sheets. After another moment, he blindly fished for a loose corner of the sheet to wrap around his ears until the phone finally, blessedly, ceased its ringing.

The new quiet was only broken by the distant humming of the city outside the window, filtered music drifting through the floor from the apartment below, a chopper in the air so far away only a gust of wind sometimes advertised its existence. Aiden drifted back to sleep with the smug satisfaction of someone used to set his own hours as he damn well pleased.

Far too soon, the ringing started up again.

He still hadn't made up his mind if he wanted to use an answering machine or not. It'd be useful, not least for business, especially because he didn't keep regular hours. However, the answering machine tape might become evidence against him. Or it could provide him with ammunition against someone else… and he just didn't know if it was worth the risk.

Aiden tucked the sheet tighter around his ears, just to see if it'd work, but eventually just dropped his hands away and lay unmoving while his mind processed the fact that the phone wasn't going to _stop _and that he was actually awake, so he might as well deal with it.

He liked to think that if this was serious, he'd come off the bed like a rattlesnake. He'd found a new gym and a new sparring partner and he knew he could do this sort of thing. It was, however, not serious, it was just a ringing phone. His legs got tangled in the sheets and he stumbled awkwardly after he'd rolled off the side of the bed, couldn't quite figure out how to get rid of the sheet for a second, hopped on one leg until he'd finally struggled free.

In the meantime, the caller hadn't given up.

He padded across the room to where the phone was mounted on a pillar by the kitchenette.

"Hgn," he mumbled as he picked it up. He took two steps forward to the bar counter and the bowl there. He found a handful of small pieces of potato chips at the bottom, stuffed them into his mouth, but grimaced at how sloppy they'd become.

_"Oh god Aiden for fuck's sake! Thank god! I need help!" _

Aiden blinked a few times, brain slowly kicking into gear. "Tighe?"

_"Oh god! Oh shit. Fuck. Oh god, Aiden, I fucked up. I fucked it up so bad! I don't know what to do!" _

"How about you calm down?" Aiden suggested vacantly. He took a few steps to the side, opened the fridge and peered inside. There wasn't much in the way of food, he liked to order out because it was easier and tasted better and he had more important things to do than dishes.

When he'd moved out, his mother had been adamant to stoke his fridge, but their relationship had been deteriorating to the point where he'd rather not let her see this place, she'd want to know how he paid for it. Or she might not ask at all, just assume she knew and that'd just be worse.

_"It's bad!" _Tighe whined. _"I… you've got to help me! You know what to do, right?"_

Aiden took a can of coke, stepped out of the cold of the fridge and shoved it closed with his shoulder.

"What happened?"

_"I stole a car!"_

Aiden shrugged. He made his way back to the couch, straining the phone cord to capacity. He shoved a pile of clothes aside and threw himself down, settled his legs up on the table in front of him. An empty pizza carton toppled over the side and to the floor.

"So?" he asked. "You need a buyer? I don't do cars, but…"

_"No! I need to give it back!" _

The coke hissed and bubbled up around his fingers as he opened it, splashed a few cold drops down his chest and he jerk up to stop the whole thing from spilling over him.

"Why would you do that?"

_"Because I have to! Or I'm toast! Can you stop cracking jokes at the idiot and help me? I know I'm a deadbeat sellout, okay?" _

Aiden sighed, sipped carefully from the coke and said, "Look, I just woke up, just start at the beginning, yeah? I'm sure that'd make it easier for me to understand."

It took a moment until Tighe collected himself. He was breathing heavily into the phone, ran ragged by his own panic.

_"I stole this car," _he started. _"It was really just a junker, you know? No one cares, no cops, right? I got this guy at the junkyard. But this car… man, I don't know. I always clean out the glove compartment and the trunk, like, maybe there's something useful in there and… there was this plastic bag full of cash! I counted it, it's more than thirty grant." _

"Drug money," Aiden guessed. "Maybe insurance money."

_"I don't know! I don't care!" _Tighe snapped. _"I wanted to take the car back where I found it, but… they'll know and maybe they're waiting for me. Shit, I don't want any trouble." _

"Do you know whose money it is?"

_"No… but it's Dead Man Walking territory," _Tighe said.

Aiden heard him hesitate, aware that Aiden wasn't particularly keen on messing with Dead Man business. Since moving away from Bridgeport, he'd made it a point to keep his distance and in turn, the Dead Man pretended he didn't exist, either.

Aiden took another sip off the coke. The sugar and caffeine burned away the last remnants of drowsiness.

"Sounds like a mess," Aiden observed.

_"Oh really?" _Tighe sneered. _"What makes you think that?" _

He huffed, paused for a moment, then added, _"Well? You gonna help or not? _

Aiden dropped his head back, pushed the coke against his cheek, stared at the exposed beams above him, grains of dust dancing lazily in the streaks of sunlight. Technically, he needed a paying job, maybe a driving gig, something simple that brought in some quick bucks with little risk. Messing with Dead Men… and honestly, the only reason Tighe was involved in stealing junkers was because it was the best he could do these days, half his mind knocked out more or less permanently by his drug habit.

"You shooting?" Aiden asked.

_"What? No!" _Tighe announced, then quieter, _"Not right now… It's hard, you know. I'm getting it under control." _He paused. _"What's that got to do with anything?" _

Aiden grunted, rolled the coke slowly back and forth. He pulled a face and sighed. "Where are you? With the car?"

_"I parked it under a bridge in Brandon Docks, no one's going to find it there. I'm staying with Takisha, but she wants me out of here. I don't know if I can go home… what if they know it's me?" _

"If they knew it was you, they'd be able to find you at _Takisha's_," Aiden assured him. It was the first place anyone would look for Tighe. Takisha was his sometimes dealer and on/off girlfriend for the last two years. Everyone knew that.

"Stay there, I'll come pick you up."

_"God, thank you," _Tighe said, breathing a loud sigh of relief.

* * *

Later, Aiden parked the car across the street from a karaoke bar, glanced around and at Tighe slouched in the passenger seat. Tighe looked back at him from wide eyes, unusually quiet since Aiden had picked him up.

Aiden had stuffed the money, plastic bag and all, into a duffel-bag, currently strapped down behind him, half-hidden under Aiden's leather jacket. It was safer than leaving it in the junker, where just some other junkie could come and pick it up. Tighe had tentatively suggested that it'd be a good idea to just let it happen, let the money be someone else's problem, but it wasn't clear if Tighe wasn't on the radar already.

"Do you… think we could keep it, maybe?" Tighe asked when Aiden made no move.

Aiden snapped his head around to stare at him wordlessly.

Tighe threw his hands up. "Just a thought!" he said. "I thought I'd say it, because… well… it's there, right?"

Aiden shook his head slowly, "Are you prepared to watch your back for the rest of your life? For a handful of bucks?"

"Handful of bucks!" Tighe said. "That's more money than I've ever seen in one place."

His gaze darted away sullenly and he muttered, "Maybe you do, or something."

"T…" Aiden sighed. "I told you I could get you jobs. Paying jobs. _Well-_paying jobs. But you've got to be solid for that."

Tighe said nothing, slipped an inch further down in his seat and hoisted his knee up against the door, grumbling inaudible to himself.

Eventually, Aiden said, "Wait here."

He got out of the car and strode across the street to the bar. Even in bright daylight, the red light from the sign above the door spilled an ominous glow through the open door and into the murky space of the bar beyond. The stage didn't see much traffic, it stood full of surplus chairs and stacks of crates.

Some nights some drugged out of his mind gang-banger would take the stage, often with some scrambling from the bartender to get the sound system plugged in before the 'banger got annoyed and just trashed something. Only a few people were hanging around at this hour, however.

The group of youngsters hanging around by the door like scavengers near a pack of larger predator shuffled inconspicuously out of Aiden's way. They went just far enough to let him pass without brushing past him, not even a hairsbreadth more, but that was fine by him.

Aiden made his way to the bar counter, pushed his hand through his hair to get the strands out of his face, then leaned casually on the counter.

"Oh no no no," the bartender said, looking up. His face underwent a rapid change, from the smarmy smile he'd reserved for the two women he'd be talking to to fluctuating between resigned and worried. He pushed himself up and walked over, extended an accusing finger at Aiden's face.

"You're not here," he said. "I'm not seeing you here. You aren't welcome here. Drago was very clear on that. So it's really impossible that you are here."

Very calmly, Aiden settled the back of his hand against the bartender's extended finger and gently pushed until it aimed over his shoulder.

"I've got a message for Drago and the Dead Men," Aiden said, ignoring the bartender's anxiety.

The bartender's expression darkened, he withdrew his hand past Aiden's and re-aimed his finger at him.

"You should go," he said.

Aiden took his time, staring past the length of the bartender's arm, meeting his gaze. Displeasure tightened the corners of his mouth and narrowed his eyes.

"Do you need to write it down?"

The bartender huffed. "Are you deaf on top of stupid? You…"

Without warning, Aiden's arm shot forward, gripped a hold of the bartender's still extended finger, twisted it and slammed the hand down on the counter. The bartender yelped, more in confusion than actual pain as his body was forced to turn with the motion or have some delicate bones broken out of their joints.

"Son of bitch," the bartender hissed, stared up at Aiden. Some of the nearest patrons glanced over them, but none seemed particularly interested in interfering, most didn't even care to watch. It'd would likely only start bothering them if they ran out of booze due to an incapacitated bartender.

"Drago," Aiden said. "Message. Are you listening?"

The bartender bared his teeth, the muscles in his arm flexed uselessly as he debated with himself whether he should try to resist or if it wasn't worth it.

"Fuck you," the bartender said and winced when Aiden applied a little more pressure on already overstrained joints.

Aiden arched his brows, pretended to consider the situation, then slowly eased up on his grip, letting his hand rest harmlessly on the sticky counter. The bartender shot him a baleful look as he picked himself back up and straightened his shirt. He cast a quick glance at the two girl's he'd been working on before, but didn't seem too happy about what he saw. He looked back at Aiden.

"It's your funeral," the bartender said. "What do you want?"

"I 'found' something," Aiden said. "One of Drago's drug pushers managed to lose sight of some thirty grant. I'm a nice man, I like to help the less fortunate, so I'm willing to give the money back. Get the message to whoever needs it, but the offer expires soon."

The bartender's brows had drawn upward during Aiden's speech.

"You got that?" Aiden asked, unimpressed.

"Dude…" the bartender started. "I have no idea what you're about."

Aiden smirked a little. "You aren't meant to," he said and, still smiling, added, "Drago already has my number."

* * *

By the time Tighe followed Aiden into his apartment, the first signs of withdrawal were making themselves felt. It wasn't bad, Tighe had his addiction under control. Well, as under control as these things were, but he wasn't using too much and too regularly, so all he got so far was a queazy feeling in his stomach and an odd feeling in his head, like he was getting a cold. Depending on his supply and money, he'd either go buy something or hole up alone and wait until the worst had passed. Neither was an option right now, but he wasn't going to tell Aiden about it, either. Aiden didn't approve and never stopped pointing out how he didn't approve. It was why Tighe didn't hang out with him more often. That and Aiden's weird schedule and his weird new friends and everything else about Aiden's weird fixer job.

Despite Tighe's low-level misgivings, Aiden's place turned out to be far too impressive to ignore.

"Fuck, Aiden," Tighe whistled.

He turned a little circle on his heels, taking it in, looking up to the highest point of the sloped roof, then traced it back down to a laden, free-standing bookshelf and the bright red couch below. A large TV and stereo occupied the wall and housed a nice collection of records. A large, heavy table served as desk and separator to the bedroom, piled with old newspapers and magazines and random bits of paper, a notebook with Aiden's fast and unreadable handwriting and the small, unobtrusive square of a closed laptop.

"And they say crime doesn't pay," Tighe added.

Aiden attempted a nonchalant shrug as he walked past behind Tighe, dropped his jacket over the back of a chair and walked to the fridge.

"I got coke," Aiden offered, peering into the fridge.

Tighe avoided the obvious coke quip, better not wake any sleeping dogs and asked, "Beer?"

Beer was supposed to be good for the stomach, right? He thought as he rifled through the records briefly, then wandered on to the bookshelf.

"Nope, staying sober on the job. Coke?"

Tighe pursed his lips at Aiden's patronising tone, but seeing his place, maybe he wasn't doing this entire fixer thing wrong. Didn't seem like Aiden needed the ego boost, though and Tighe only said, "Coke, fine."

Up close, most of Aiden's interior decoration revealed a thin sheen of dust, disturbed here and there when Aiden pulled out a record or book. The huge couch was home to more random paper and discarded pieces of clothes, the table in front of it occupied by empty takeout carton, chips bags and empty cans. Tighe even spotted a gun magazine under a pile, just as carelessly thrown away.

Tighe wandered back to the bookshelf, glanced over the titles. He said, "I knew you were a bookworm, but you need to go out more."

He laughed quietly at his own joke and snatched a book from the shelf. He took it with him back to the couch, where he dropped down gracelessly, swivelled and hung his legs over the back as he opened the book.

Aiden glanced over his shoulder, past the edge of the fridge. He found the two last cans of coke and carried them back to the couch, dangling one over Tighe's head.

"I probably see more action than you," Aiden chuckled. "Better than Takisha, too, she grows a manlier beard than you do."

Tighe narrowed his eyes, but then grinned anyway as he reached for the can. "She really does."

Aiden wandered past him and perched himself cross-legged in the low armchair to the side of him. The coke hissed as he opened it, spilled some foam down to the ground in front of him.

Tighe flipped through the book at random, then returned to the first page. After a moment, he started to chuckle, he really didn't have a choice on the matter.

"Oh come on," he remarked. _"It's not like I'm using," _he read. _"It's like my body's developed this massive drug deficiency." _

He dropped his head over the edge of the couch, upside down, he stared up at Aiden. "Are you giving me hints here?"

Aiden nodded earnestly, "Yep, you caught me, all my books have that line in them. Just in case you ever come by to browse."

Tighe cast him a sharp look, as if he considered the viability of the confession, then pulled up his brows before he looked back at the book. He wanted to say _it's not something you can fix, like your other jobs. _

"But for real," Aiden said, because he could never ever drop something. "You've got to clean up your act."

Tighe's expression darkened. _I'm not there for you to fix me. _It sat on his tongue and he could easily picture how the argument would play out. It wouldn't take long, Aiden's patience wasn't a reliable thing and he'd run out of it quickly.

Abruptly, Tighe slapped the book closed and dropped it to the floor as he swivelled back around and sat up straight for a moment. Asking Aiden for help was a mistake, it had _always _been a mistake, even years ago in the Dead Men Walking. Aiden fixed things by making everything worse for everyone else.

"You aren't my mother," Tighe snapped, which was probably not a very good argument, seeing as it was somewhat self-evident. But maybe mentioning mothers got Aiden to back off, he wasn't on very good terms with his own, after all.

Tighe started crossing his arms over his chest, realised he was still holding the coke and loosened his arms again, leaned back into the couch and glowered at Aiden.

"No, but I'm a friend," Aiden insisted. "You can always…"

Tighe could already sense the soppy declaration of friendship he was about to make, he didn't quite know what he thought of that, either, but then Aiden stopped himself. Tighe watched him clench his teeth tensely for just a second, then Aiden pulled a carefully neutral expression back over his face.

Aiden shrugged, "You know what? You're right. I'm not your mother, if you don't give a fuck, I don't either."

"Fuck you," Tighe snapped. "Thank you."

It was a tense silence that followed, both of them sullenly sucking on their cokes, waiting for the edge to wear off.

"So, uh," Tighe finally said. "Are you going to have a party?"

He'd said it only because the silence was uncomfortable, pulling loose the strands of his already frayed nerves, fending off the prickling absence crawling through his body. He could hold out a day, he thought, he could probably even act his way through it to keep Aiden from nagging more, but he'd rather he didn't have to.

"Birthday party?" Aiden asked, seemed momentarily dumbfounded at the concept.

"Yeah," Tighe looked around. "You've got the space for it."

"I don't have any plans," Aiden said slowly. Something thin and strained had come into his voice, like he didn't quite know which pitch to use to maintain the portrayal of laid-back carelessness.

"Well, I want an invitation," Tighe declared.

Aiden looked away, it was the gesture of someone looking around, sizing up the apartment for how it would accommodate the party, but his face remained a little too impassive.

"Sure," he said then, took a sip from the coke. "But I don't think there'll be a party."

Tighe wondered about that, maybe Aiden's new fixer friends weren't the partying type. Or perhaps they just weren't the kind of people you wanted to celebrate with. Tighe didn't know. His experience with fixers was limited. He knew sometimes they got hired by the upper members of the gangs, to handle a problem that required a more delicate touch, or didn't need to have their name attached to it. They seemed like dangerous people to Tighe. The gangs were, too, of course, but he'd grown up with their threats and ran with them. Fixers had always seemed like people who'd given up even the semblance of loyalty.

And that was Aiden, too, all the way. He couldn't get out of Bridgeport fast enough, couldn't leave the Dead Men Walking fast enough. Aiden wanted the fast cars and the stylish apartment. He wanted the respect, too, and the reputation. Aiden probably thought he cared about the friends and family he left by the wayside, but Tighe at least had never actually seen any evidence for it.

Still, he'd called Aiden when he realised the shit he was in with the money, because Aiden was the only one with a handle on these sorts of things. You'd have to wonder what that did to a guy, to be only called because he was useful, even by his oldest friend.

Tighe caught himself rubbing his temple, fending off the encroaching exhaustion, cleared his throat and took another gulp of the coke, but his throat remained parched.

Someone knocked on the door.

The significance took a little while to work through Tighe's mind. The first thing he noticed was Aiden snapping his head up and then going perfectly still, gaze shooting over Tighe's shoulder to fix on the door.

Tighe took a breath and opened his mouth to ask what was up, but Aiden shushed him sharply, but quietly and Tighe froze, eyes wide in confusion.

Tenderly, Aiden set the can down on the table and uncoiled from his seated position smoothly. He walked slowly to the door, setting each foot with care to avoid making a noise.

Things fell into place slowly. When they'd come, Aiden had needed a key to get in, the door of the apartment building wasn't open to strangers. But why the alarm? Couldn't it be just the guy from downstairs wanting to borrow milk or weed or something?

Tighe twisted around and watched Aiden advance on the door from the side, hesitate, then step in closer to peer through the peephole. It seemed he stood there forever, motionless.

"Aiden," Tighe said and at least it had the effect that he snapped his hand up and held it out toward's him to shut him up. Not a neighbour, Tighe concluded sourly.

Aiden stood up straight, look over his shoulder at Tighe. For the second that their gazes connected, Aiden seemed just as much at a loss as Tighe.

He mouthed, _"Shit." _

Tighe frowned and shrugged in confusion, shook his head.

Aiden turned back to the door, hesitated another second and something subtly changed in his posture as he reached for the door and finally pulled it open.

"What a surprise," Aiden drawled, belying the fact that, yes, it was a surprise and not a pleasant one.

Past Aiden, Tighe could make out the tall, broad shape of Drago even before Aiden drew back from the doorway to let him in. Cold sweat prickled down the back of Tighe's neck at the recognition and quite suddenly, he wished it was just another withdrawal symptom.

Drago was old, he had to be, because he'd been in charge of the Dead Men Walking for as long as Tighe could remember. He looked old, too, in a way. Weathered face and greying hair, but he was also big, it varied through the years, sometimes there was a lot of fat cushioning the muscles, but Drago always looked like he could punch a hole in a wall. Aiden wasn't small, but Drago dwarfed him.

Drago took several slow, measured steps into the room, glanced around and waited until Aiden had closed the door and circled back around to face him.

"I expected a call," Aiden said. "It's courtesy."

Drago pulled his thick brows up in what looked like mild surprise mixed with mild annoyance.

"Why drag this out for longer?" he asked. His gaze passed over Tighe and lingered pensively for a second before Drago returned it to Aiden.

"I had a chat with Takisha, she's a smart girl," he said. "Told me everything."

He looked at Tighe for another second. "You know, if it had just been you, I'd have let it go," he said and then finally fixed on Aiden so sharply, Tighe was surprised when Aiden didn't flinch.

"Tighe is… a harmless puppy," Drago continued. Tighe bristled at the description, but he wasn't dumb enough to start an argument with Drago over it.

"But you," Drago addressed Aiden. "Little Danny Boy, thinks he can play the big game, thinks he can dictate the terms, thinks he can waltz into _my _territory like he owes it. Well… now we have a problem."

Tighe had seen Aiden face off against Dead Men members often enough, he'd had a reputation for stand-offishness and an uncanny knack for coming out on top. Aiden had never moved high enough to associate with Drago directly, the first time Drago had taken note of Aiden at all was when Aiden decided to call it quits and needed to negotiate his exit from the gang.

What Tighe had never seen was Aiden backing down.

"It doesn't have to be," Aiden said with a placating smile and spread out hands. "It was an accident, Tighe wanted to make it right, but didn't know how. I'm just the middle man."

Aiden drew back a step. "But I don't have to be involved if you don't want me to. I mean, Tighe can just give the money back. You said you were okay with him."

Drago tilted his head to the side, regarding Aiden in silence. He took a step toward him and extended his hand and when Aiden didn't draw away, Drago wrapped his hand around Aiden's throat. With just a slight push, he forced Aiden to take a step back and another, until Aiden bumped into the back of the couch by Tighe's side.

"But little Danny Boy _is_ involved," Drago said. His fingers looked relaxed around Aiden's throat, he wasn't squeezing at all. Tighe saw Aiden's face only in profile, head tilted back a little to accommodate Drago's grip and his expression unduly calm, but his eyes were opened just a little too wide.

"Drago, listen," Aiden said, sounding quieter and rougher than normal. "It's not personal. Tighe just didn't know what to do, I just…"

"You just wanted to get back at me," Drago said. "Show me how I can't touch you now. How you think we are equals now."

"Look," Aiden started. "I'm sorry, okay? I…"

Drago shut him up by tightening his grip. Tighe saw the muscles in his arm tense and Aiden twitched back a scant inch more, back bent slightly, but he wasn't trying to get out of the grip, he was submitting to it.

Tighe couldn't decide if he was just scared by Drago's mere presence or if Aiden's _reaction _was the really frightening thing. What was Drago up to, anyway?

"Drago," Tighe said, realised his voice came out in a croak and cleared his throat. "Why don't I just take you to the money? You take it and we forget all about this?"

"In a minute," Drago said casually, never taking his gaze away from boring into Aiden's. "I have to teach little Danny Boy a lessen first."

He flexed his fingers against Aiden's skin in what seemed like anticipation.

Aiden mouthed, "Don't."

Drago didn't even deign to answer and for an agonisingly long moment nothing happened at all. Tighe didn't know what to do, if he should interfere, if that'd make things worse for him and Aiden, or if maybe Drago would just let them off after he'd given them a good scare or…

Aiden moved, Tighe saw it with a surreal sense of delay, when his mind played it back to him in slow motion. Aiden snapped his hand up, gripped Drago's wrist and twisted so hard and so fast, Drago failed to muster an immediate defence. He bent to the side with his arm, exposed his back and Aiden hacked his elbow down in the opening. Aiden slipped away from the restricting closeness of the couch, stepped past Drago in the time it took the old gang-banger to catch his bearing.

Without letting go of the arm, Aiden kicked out with one leg, into Drago's knee and held fast as the bigger man buckled under the blow. Drago growled, half anger, half surprise and shook free of his brief, stunned passivity to launch himself at Aiden with the full force of his weight.

Tighe lurched from his seat and stood behind the feeble barrier of the couch, watching Drago and Aiden tangle. It was messy, neither of them seemed to have time and inclination for finesse or technique. Aiden suffered a staggering head-but, blood bursting from his nose and he stumbled, Drago followed it up instantly by smashing his fist into the side of his face.

Tighe twitched into motion, tearing his gaze away from the two of them, searching the place for a weapon, or anything he could use as one and came up empty in the chaos of Aiden's apartment.

Rather than just be knocked around, Aiden managed to roll back to his feet, kicked out with a foot as he stood back up. He caught Drago's knee, made him lose his balance and hurt his hand by trying to catch the kick and turn it against Aiden.

Aiden scrambled forward, seemed to catch his fall on kitchen chair, but took only a second to stabilise himself, then tightened his grip on the chair and whipped it up and around. It was a sweeping gesture, not fast enough to catch Drago unaware and he drew back from the blow and jumped in behind it with an agility he didn't look like he possessed.

Drago lunged for Aiden's head, got a handful of hair and tore at an ear, used the handle to try to crash Aiden down on the table. Instinctively, Aiden had snapped a hand up around Drago's wrist, but put all his strength into a blow into Drago's exposed side. Drago grasped, his grip loosened and Aiden twisted out of it, jabbed a knee up into Drago's groin and the gang leader doubled forward for just a second.

Aiden slipped past him, swiped a leg out and pulled Drago's feet away from under him. Drago gave a guttural cry as he whipped around after Aiden, who didn't stop to face him. Instead, Aiden raced through the apartment, past his desk where Drago was on him again, caught him by the collar and yanked him back sharply, he got Aiden's elbow in the face and reeled back again, but managed to trip Aiden, making him crash down by the side of his bed.

Tighe lost sight of them, though he was painfully aware of them in his periphery as he scrambled around the couch and picked up the chair Aiden had dropped before, rushing after them.

He was just in time to see the end. Drago had pulled Aiden up by a grip on his shirt, arm raised for another blow, but he'd gone very still with the arm raised, a gun pressed into the flesh of his cheek so hard Tighe felt his own teeth ache just looking at it.

Over Drago's bulk, Tighe had an almost unobstructed view of Aiden's blood-smeared face. His teeth were bared, eyes wide open and too green in his pale face.

Drago was breathing hard, his back raising and falling rapidly, obvious fury crashing against Aiden's sudden, sneering calmness until Drago seemed to regain some of his own composure.

"You wouldn't," Drago observed, quietly, voice rough from the fight.

The sinews on Aiden's neck strained and jumped as he swallowed, his nostrils flared like an angry animal's and he said, "Don't make me."

For a mad instant, Tighe was convinced the moment would snap, the precarious stalemate could only tip into one disaster or another. Tighe couldn't see Drago's face, but his view of Aiden's was clear and there was a sick desire burning there, belying his beseeching words.

Perhaps Drago saw it, too, he must have seen that look often enough, running a gang in Chicago for as long as he had. A small shudder ran over his shoulders, Tighe wasn't sure what it was at first, until a dry, gargling mirthless chuckle worked itself from Drago's throat. He gave Aiden a slight shove, not enough to make him pull the trigger and still make a point.

"Little Danny Boy," Drago chortled, shaking his head. He drew back slowly, sat back at his haunches than heaved himself back to his feet with considerable less grace than he'd displayed in the fight. "I'll not forget this."

"Good," Aiden croaked, still on the floor. "I don't want to do it again."

Drago shook his head and it seemed almost sad. He turned his head to the side and said, "Tighe."

Tighe flinched and realised he was still holding the chair. He set it down very gently, as if pretending he hadn't been about to crash it over Drago's back at all.

"Get me the money," Drago said. "And we're even."

Tighe hesitated, gaze skittering away uncertainly as Drago finally faced him fully. "It's… we'll have to drive," Tighe said.

Drago nodded, carefully set one foot in front of the other as he walked towards the door. Casually, he turned his head to the side and spat a gob of saliva and blood on the floor.

Tighe glanced back at Aiden, who had only pulled himself up on his elbows. His facial expression had lost its edge, now that Drago wasn't looking at him anymore. At Tighe's questioning look, Aiden only nodded and began heaving himself into a sitting position.

"Tighe," Drago said and Tighe snapped around. "Let's go."

Tighe hesitated another moment, still uncertain, but he felt the tension in the room slowly mellowing out. He turned and hurried after Drago, not wanting to push his luck any further today.

Behind him, Aiden deflated against the side of his bed, resting his throbbing head on the cool sheets, blood still running from his nose and soaking the bedding.

* * *

_"Aiden, are you alright?" _

"I'm fine, don't worry about it. What about Drago? Did you get him the money?"

_"Fuck, I thought he'd rip my head off! But he just took the bag and said THIS BETTER NOT HAPPEN AGAIN and drove off. I'm… not sure if it's a win, you know? But it's okay. I think. He's not going to kill me, anyway. I'm not so sure about you." _

"He won't come after me."

_"How do you know? I'm serious. _How _do you _know_?" _

"Because it'll cost him and I'm not important. I wouldn't be surprised if he offered me a job in the future."

_"I would, but whatever. Uh, Aiden? I'm…"_

"What?"

_"I get that you're a fixer these days and, well, this whole shit is probably what you do everyday anyway and I'm… not sure if I can pay you." _

"For real, T? You actually think I'd charge you?"

_"I don't know, okay? I don't understand you. It was just a question. Forget it."_

"Actually, for the opportunity to hold a gun in Drago's face, I should be paying you."

_"Oh, well, consider it a freebie, then." _

"How gratuitous of you."

_"Yeah, I know. I'm amazing._"

* * *

A little over a week later, Aiden sat at his couch table with a ball of shredded paper in front of him. Two more plastic bags sat on the floor beside him, waiting to be carefully pulled apart and reassembled. He'd spent most of the afternoon reconstructing the files painstakingly, one flimsy strand of paper after another. It was tedious and didn't seem to be yielding as much juicy information as he had hoped about the company whose trash he'd stolen them from.

He was starting to lose light and concentration as the afternoon dimmed. His mind growing sluggish, making it harder to focus on tiny snippets of black ink and minimally differing perforation on the edge of each sheet.

Groaning a little, he sat back, closed his eyes and flexed his shoulders back, took a moment to relax. He'd mostly recovered from the bruises he'd sustained in the brawl with Drago, but he still felt the odd twinge when he made the wrong move.

He'd had enough time to review his confrontation with Drago, analyse it to figure out the mistakes he'd made, but for once, he wasn't sure he wanted to learn anything. It wouldn't have been too hard to overcome Drago's distrust, all he'd have had to do was act submissive and use Drago's ego against him. Easy, textbook, Drago wasn't that complicated. But to make it work, Aiden would've had to commit to the act and he hadn't.

Part of him, Aiden realised, had been itching to get his hands on Drago for a long time, even if he wasn't even sure what specific transgression he wanted to punish Drago for.

The only question Aiden still hadn't looked at too closely, even now, was what he'd do if he ran into Drago again. Contrary to what he'd said to Tighe, he doubted Drago would hire him. The Dead Men would hire _fixers_, of course, if the situation was messed up too badly to handle alone, but they wouldn't come to Aiden.

Taking a few more breaths, Aiden decided the question wasn't all that important. He didn't want to be moving in the same circles as the gangs anyway, plenty of much better work in the beginning IT boom.

He glanced across the room at the phone and the answering machine. It was set to silent, but its glowing number blinked insistently. Something he'd need to take care of, especially if some of these calls turned out to be from Nicky.

The doorbell rang, saved him from that particular line of thinking and he bounced up and across the room. His foot prickled a little after his prolonged crouched position and he stamped it irritably on the way to the door.

Tighe announced himself cheerfully through the intercom. Aiden buzzed him in and considered hiding the shredded paper, but he wasn't going to waste all his hard work and Tighe wouldn't care.

A moment later, Tighe knocked on the door and Aiden let him in.

Grinning widely, Tighe wrapped a somewhat baffled Aiden into a tight hug.

"Happy birthday!" Tighe announced when he let him go. He looked past Aiden and pulled a slightly disapproving face.

"You really weren't kidding," he observed. "No party."

Aiden shrugged. "I'm not a little kid anymore."

Tighe slapped his back, much harder than his scrawny body should've allowed.

"Fuck that," he declared. "We're having a party. You, me and some of your _actual _friends."

Not giving Aiden any time to process the turn of event. Tighe looked around, found Aiden's jacket and picked it up.

"And you're going to enjoy yourself," Tighe declared. "Man, you live fucking downtown and you're wasting it."

"I'm… " Aiden started, found himself frowning, voice tapering off as he realised what he was saying. "… working."

"Yeah, no, you're not, not today babe, you can thank me when you're sober again. So, sometime next week."

Tighe looked Aiden over, skeptically, quirked an eyebrow up and seemed to just give up on that part. He cast another searching look around the room, found what he was looking for and picked up the closest pair of boots he could find. He shoved them into Aiden's lax hands, on top of the jacket he'd already deposited there.

Aiden opened his mouth. He didn't think he was going to object, but Tighe just gripped his elbow and dragged him through the door.

"Let's rock this town," Tighe declared.

It was hard to resist Tighe's good mood, even if Aiden had his suspicions about it, but he'd spent the entire day focussing on a dull, self-appointed goal he barely managed to care about. And there was some truth to what Tighe had said, too. He'd moved to the heart of Chicago, but he wasn't enjoying it as much as he should.

Finding himself grinning, Aiden just about remembered to snatch his keys from the cabinet by the door in the second before Tighe slammed the door shut.

* * *

_End of _A Friend in Need_

* * *

**Reference: **Tighe is reading from William Gibson's Neuromancer.

* * *

**Revised on 29/Nov/2016**


	66. Gunmetal Sky: Widow's Walk - Part 1

**Everyone's age for your convenience: **Aiden's 52, Frewer 55 and Mia is 30. If T-Bone's Pawnee profile is correct, he should be 66 (I… think I should've calculated that before I made him appear in Quaint Old World, what a tough old fart.)

**Also note:** The name of _Josh _Wyland from Gunmetal Sky: Dave was changed to Derek. Thanks for that, Ubi.

**Recap/Recurring characters: **Mia used to be Aiden's protége in _Femme Fatale_ and _Sucker's Game_. Cox was a bounty hunter after Aiden in _Sucker's Game_, she blackmailed Mia. Jordi crippled her by shooting out both her kneecaps, then Aiden stuffed her in a trunk for a few hours. As punishment, Aiden saddled Mia with the injured Cox and abandoned them on a parking lot outside Chicago.

* * *

[summary: the cracks are beginning to show]

[this takes place in 2026]

**_Gunmetal Sky: Widow's Walk – Part 1**

* * *

"… people want a _God, _right? Or… no, it's more like religion. Another replacement ideology. It's people getting exhausted and wanting the easy answers for once. You know? Just once. Someone's in charge. Someone knows why things happen. Someone _made _things happen. There's a point to it. Sure, that point may be malicious, but at least there's some kind of sense," Mia said, pacing on the sun-dappled plaster of the plaza. "Just take a look at politics these past twenty years, crazies, demagogues and all of them corrupt to the bone. All of them lying through their teeth about things no one can control anyway. People are scared, they feel like they've lost control of their lives and the world's going down the drain anyway. Or take the weather. Floods on one end of the country, but there's a draught on the other, like climate's doing it out of _spite…" _

"I'd believe that," Cox interjected mildly, giving Mia a slow look, but then returned her attention to tracing little patterns on the suede of her sleeve. At any rate, Mia barely paused for breath at the interruption.

"We don't go a week without some new terror threat, real or imagined," Mia continued. "We don't go a weekend without some right or left wing _nut_ chipping away at civil liberties, all under the guise of fighting unemployment or terrorism or… shit like that. _I _can't even keep track of it. Nothing's ever _safe, _or reliable. It's all always moving. And smack in the middle of all that you've got Blume's whole range of apps. You know what they do?"

"I'm sure you'll tell me."

"They make life _easy. _They tell you where to shop, what to buy, when the traffic's low, when the weather's good, what your calorie intake is. They even tell you what movie you should see and what shirt you should wear when you go on your first date with the guy Blume's dating app selected for you. People are just flocking to it. Most services are free! Why would you not use them!"

Mia stopped pacing, put her hands in her hips and stared down on Cox on the bench in front of her. "Well, that's because when Blume comes to collect that bill, we're all paying."

Cox narrowed her eyes behind her sunglasses, feigned to suppress a yawn.

"And yet here you are, shouting on top of your lungs," she pointed out. "But no sniper has taken a shot."

Mia leaned forward. "That's because I'm not dangerous. No one listens. DedSec has been on that bandwagon for years and I swear, the moment they touched a nerve… we both know what happened. But even that, it didn't matter in the end, because the majority of people are still just looking for the easy way. I don't even know I can blame them, I mean, look at the world. But… "

She huffed, then deflated a little under Cox's deeply unimpressed demeanor. Mia dropped her arms by her side. "It's just irritating," she added defensively. "Sometimes, just a little. It can't be just me, can it?"

Cox's expression didn't soften, with a lopside sneer she said, "How much have we earned through the years because of that?"

"That's what makes it even more irritating," Mia said. She took a few steps forward and dropped inelegantly down on the bench by Cox's side. The move made Cox's crutches slide and Mia snapped back up to catch them. "I always thought I was going to be the good guy."

"You're a hacker," Cox pointed out. "Working with a bounty hunter. If you want to become an activist, find yourself a different partner."

"Hey, if you want to break up with me, just say so."

Cox chuckled dryly, "No no, you've got it backward, if _you _want to break up with _me, _you should say…"

Mia's phone buzzed.

She sighed, long-suffering, but flicked her lenses on. Caller ID wasn't hidden, sparing her the trouble of doing the legwork herself, the number flickered up, then the app took hold and resolved the number to its registered owner.

_Paerce. _

Mia froze, disoriented, because the world had unexpectedly been knocked entirely out of whack. Her own words grated in her memory, of how much easier life was when at least some things were under your control. Well, Blume was certainly not controlling this one…

"What's wrong?" Cox asked.

Without answering, Mia held out her phone and turned the display to Cox, where the same information was displayed.

"So?" Cox asked uncomprehending, but Mia saw the spark of subconscious recognition.

"It's was a typo, on my old phone, from when I was still in Chicago," Mia explained tonelessly. "It's Pearce."

The response in Cox was immediate. All warmth, even the boredom of familiarity, fell away from her, replaced with a nearly ten year old history she was reminded of every single time she wanted to walk even one step and every time she turned the lights out or a door closed.

"Aren't you going to answer?" Cox asked, her voice wiped clean of all inflection.

Mia shook her head, fighting an odd sense of disorientation, mental vertigo. The phone had been buzzing for almost two minutes now, some override Mia didn't know to stop the call from going to voicemail. At least Pearce had learned patience, she thought wryly.

She picked up the call.

"Yes?"

_"Do you know the _Casa di Claudia_?" _

It was a pizza place, not far from the plaza. Mia realised she'd been scanning the open space in front of her, looking at the people there as if they all were wearing masks and just waiting for their chance to tear them off.

"Y-yes."

_"Go there now." _

He hung up before Mia worked through her surprise to phrase anything resembling a coherent question. The disconnect icon flashing in her field of vision seemed like it was trying to hypnothise her and Mia flicked it away with an impatient gesture of her thumb across the display of her phone.

"What does he want?" Cox asked without any attempt to hide her contempt.

"I have no idea," Mia said. She picked herself up without thinking about what she was doing, stopped on her tracks and turned to Cox. "Are you home later?"

"Maybe," Cox said. She paused for a moment, her voice strained, but she added, "Why don't you come by?"

"Thank you," Mia said and meant it.

She could walk to the _Casa di Claudia, _just a few minutes, barely enough to clear her head, but she thought it would be best if she got things sorted before she arrived. Who knew what was waiting for her?

After Pearce had dumped her outside Chicago with an almost dead woman in the the trunk, Mia had been certain she'd never see him again. Not unless she accidentally or intentionally one of the rules he'd set. She hadn't, she was sure of it, She'd never dare. But now it was him who contacted her.

For a split second she wondered if it had been him at all, not some decoy, some trap to lure her out, but who would know about that typo? Such an irrelevant thing, even under torture, how would someone think of it? She'd left the phone behind in Chicago, she assumed Pearce himself had taken care of it and he'd know how to hide his tracks. No, she decided, but also because she didn't have many other options. _No_. This was the real deal and Pearce wanted something from her.

Unlike Cox, Mia's initial anger at Pearce's treatment had mellowed out over the years. He hadn't been nearly as cruel as he could've been, he hadn't really done her as much damage as she had thought, standing so lost on that parking lot all those years ago.

In the end, it had even turned out well for her, though the signs had been bad all around. Saving Cox's life by driving her to nearest hospital, even though Mia knew there was no way she could talk her way out of it, that had taken more courage than anything in her life ever had. They'd saved Cox, but not quite her mobility, her knees too shattered and left broken for too long. When the cops inevitably showed up, Mia simply refused to say anything, let them grope around in the dark, trying to fit the pieces together. Pearce had wiped all evidence of Mia's existence in Chicago, reduced her to a name and birthdate without history and without anything for the cops to work with. It was impossible to pin Cox's injuries on Mia, too, despite the circumstances.

And when Cox regained consciousness, she had the presence of mind to refuse to testify in any way. At the time, Mia didn't know if it was shock, or if it was fear of Pearce, or if Cox even in that state, played her own game. It turned out, it was a bit of all of these. When the cops eventually brought her to court anyway, because they couldn't turn up any other culprit, the judge found the evidence laughable and, somewhat reluctantly, let her go. Which was when Cox had offered a partnership. Or rather, _demanded _it, by way of compensation.

"You can work off your debt," Cox had said.

"I saved your life," Mia had pointed out. "Isn't that enough?"

"Not nearly."

The _Casa di Claudia _appeared in front of her, just around the corner in a side-street. Business was slow, the middle of the afternoon. When Mia's eyes adjusted to the shadowed inside, she saw only two guests, two young men sharing a table and deep in conversation.

No sign of Pearce, Mia wasn't sure if she was disappointed or if she should've expected it.

"Can I help you?" a waiter asked and smiled at her.

"I… I'm meeting a friend," Mia said, stumbling over the words. The waiter's expression brightened at recognition.

"Ah, yes, the gentleman had to leave early," he explained. "But he left you something. Wait a second."

He took a few steps behind the bar counter, bent down and pulled out a small white paper bag, which he handed to Mia with the same clueless smile.

Mia's glanced over the label imprinted on the bag, some luxury cosmetics store she'd never bothered with. She raised an eyebrow, but filed the fact away for later dissection.

She remembered to give the waiter a smile, flicked her thumb across the button that had sprung up when she'd walked through the door and transferred a small tip to him. His face lit up again. No doubt Pearce had already tipped, if only because Pearce entirely operated on the duality of bribery and coercion.

She took the bag and stole a quick look inside. A small cube, clearly gift-wrapped by the store that sold it. She resisted the urge to tear off the wrapping and find out what the hell this all was about, but every suspicious bone in her body advised caution. She didn't have the first clue what this was about and she'd rather handle anything of Pearce's in an environment she could be reasonably sure she controlled.

She considered heading home, but went to Cox's condo instead. It was somewhat more remote and higher up in a high-rise and Mia trusted the more recent insulation somewhat more than her own, more ramshackle one.

Cox let her in without commenting, but gave the bag a quizzical look. In her condo, she leant only on one crutch, hobbled over to her desk and lowered herself into the chair, and leaned the cruch against it.

"Pearce wasn't there," Mia explained, even though Cox only huffed and rotated her chair towards the screen.

Mia dropped herself in the couch, pulled up the interface on her lenses and scanned the place for any new or unidentified signals. When she found none, she pulled the gift from the bag. She scanned it, too, and again found nothing.

"He's leaving you gifts?" Cox asked sardonically. "So… he's gone from sadistic murderer to creepy stalker. Is that an improvement, do you think? Or more of a downgrade, in his very special case?"

She'd turned her chair back toward the room, leaned an elbow on the table and eyed Mia from sharp eyes.

As Mia turned the cube in her hand, Cox added darkly, "I hope it's one of his testicles. I _seriously_ hope it hurt when he cut it off."

Mia rolled her eyes. "Come off it," she demanded and Cox snorted.

Mia finally ripped open the wrapping, dropped it on the floor, only to stare at the packaging of a jar of LUNAR Nano. LUNAR was a cosmetics company that had sprung up out of nowhere a few years ago, riding the wave of nano- and biotechnological advancement to the luxury-tier of the market. Mia guessed there might be something to their claims, beyond using the right buzzwords in advertising, but she'd never really paid it too much attention.

"Skin care?" Cox asked, her distaste warring with genuine surprise. "He's giving you an anti-aging face cream?"

She seemed to run the observation through her mind again and chortled, said, "Look, I know I keep saying it, but I think he's really lost it now."

"Maybe it's just to hide the message," Mia offered, turned the package in her hand once, then opened it and took the jar out. She spotted a line of writing on the inside of the package, quickly identified as coordinates. With the cream still in one hand, she tried to scan it into the phone, which barked at Pearce's handwriting, forcing her to input it manually.

"He's given me directions to a pier in Chicago, it's hosting tourist cruises out on the lake."

"Well, maybe it's his way of asking you out on a date," Cox offered. "It's… rather quaint, come to think of it."

Mia looked up and glared at Cox. "I don't think so." She frowned. "Nano… you know, I think I've heard about it. Something…"

She ran a quick search, waded through the first few hits of commercials and shop websites, some vlogger's opinion on the products until she came across what she was looking for.

"Ah, here it is. I knew it," Mia said. "It's one of these urban legends, LUNAR Nano's supposed to confuse fascial recognition software."

She looked over to Cox. "I thought that was bullshit."

Cox smirked. "I'm just enjoying the thought of Pearce regularly using that stuff. Doesn't it smell like wild orchid or something? He must reek like a flowerbed."

Mia considered being annoyed with Cox, but fighting Cox when it came to Pearce was an entirely fruitless effort, Mia had given it up years ago. It didn't mean the topic ever went away entirely, Cox was reminded of it constantly, it just simmered away in the background, until it surged up again.

Mia crossed her arms over her chest, stared across the room at Cox.

"You know, I don't really care what you say," she said. "I'm going to Chicago."

"Didn't he threaten to do unspeakable things to you if you so much as spat in the general direction of Chicago?" Cox inquired. "Maybe he'll even make another sick little movie out of you."

Mia rolled her eyes. "Maybe," she conceded. "But I've clearly been invited. And I'm going. Do you want to come?"

The question took Cox by surprise, Mia wasn't even sure why she'd asked at all. Habit, she supposed, because they'd been working together for years. She sometimes forgot that their origin was rocky at best, but now it slammed into her consciousness and forced her to her feet without realising what she was even doing.

Mia crossed the room to Cox, picked up the side of her chair and rotated her to face her, leaned down over Cox and stared into her eyes.

"Tell me you're just joking," Mia demanded. "Tell me, you aren't going to let it all come down on me. Even if it's just to get to him."

The acidic amusement had bled from Cox under Mia's sudden intensity, but this calm composure was worse in many ways, that frosty edge of control Cox could summon. Mia recalled it from so long ago and it still — secretly — frightened her.

Cox said, "How stupid do you think I am?"

Mia took a breath, wanting to believe the dismissal in Cox's tone, the implied reassurance, but Mia could never decipher Cox completely and Pearce's mere existence in the mix made everything entirely unpredictable.

Cox gave her no time to figure out if she wanted to say something, push for a resolution one way or the other, or if Mia preferred to leave it all unsaid, clinging to her own wishful thinking.

Speaking slowly, each word a carefully pronounced dropped hailstone, "If you dropped Pearce in front of me right, all trussed up and you handed me a butter knife so I can cut off his skin in one-square-inch patches, do you know what I would do?"

Despite herself, the thought, "_Indulge in more gory fantasies?" _shot through Mia's mind, but her throat had closed down, rendering her unable to say it, even if she'd had the heart to.

"No," Mia said instead. "I don't, that's the problem."

"I'd _leave_," Cox answered, very quietly. "I hate Pearce, but making jokes is the worst I'll do. I figure he's just about willing to let that slide."

"You're scared?" Mia asked, blinked in slow realisation. "He's scaring you."

It wasn't something that Cox would ever admit aloud, Mia knew it even before Cox's expression hardened so much it became brittle.

Mia let go of Cox's chair and stepped back, fidgeting a little as she tried to navigate the situation and its unexpected twists and turns.

"Go to Chicago," Cox said to Mia's back and sardonically added, "Try not to get killed."

* * *

The bustle of Chicago had changed in the same way it had in any metropolis of what considered itself the civilised world. Electric cars, many of them self-driving, had changed the background droning flowing through the streets. The L still rattled on it's paths, but new sound insulation had left only a suble vibration that crawled up through the bones of whoever passed by below the tracks.

Blume had spun a web of infrastructure across the city, mostly invisible to people who didn't care about such things, but their smart devices would pick the signals from the air and use them for navigation and optimisation, steering people through their everyday lives. Stationary cameras were on the way out, camcopters hovered above parks and plazas, adjusting their position to illuminate and monitor all previously blind spots.

Mia leaned against handrail and looked out over the lake while people wandered past behind her, took selfies or queued for the tourist boat that'd take them on a tour. She spotted a few camcopters out above the water, keeping the shoreline under surveillance. Mia recalled the bit in the ctOS FAQ. Emergency response time was less than three minutes, which meant that some underlying system almost certainly monitored all the people on the shore and predicted their next moves. ctOS _knew _when someone was likely to fall into the water, even before that person did.

Chicago remained on the cutting edge of technological advance. It had the highest adoption rate for any new device that entered the market and as a result, for better or worse, Chicagoans would be the ones the future happened to first.

The Nano face cream did indeed smell of wild orchid — or flowers, anyway, as far as Mia could identify — but it was a bearably subtle scent that faded quickly from awareness. She'd investigated the cream a little more thoroughly after Pearce's gift had all but confirmed the urban myth of it. Something in the cream made Profiler somehow completely fail to recognise a face. It didn't just return an error, accidental or intentional, with the cream, Profiler just didn't seem to realise it was looking at a face. The effect wasn't reliable, though, the tests Mia had ran on herself and Cox, the cream worked only about half the time.

"Welcome home," Pearce said as he stepped to her side and leaned with his back against the handrail, watching the people rather than the lake.

Mia turned her head to steal a long look at him. He was much the same, barely changed from where he was etched into her consciousness with too sharp angles. Same intensity even in his stillness, same sense of solidity when he stood close. He wore a dark, faux-leather jacket against the wind that folded smoothly with his body, some metamaterial with properties she couldn't guess at.

"Doesn't feel like home," Mia confessed. "Not anymore."

She watched the hint of a smile curl the corner of Pearce's lips.

"Thanks for coming anyway."

"What's it all ab-" Mia started, but fell silent when Pearce caught her gaze and put a finger to his lips, still with that slight smirk.

"Let's go," he said then, pushed himself from the handrail and stepped out to the path.

Mia watched him for a moment before she followed. Most of her bounty hunting business with Cox was legal and the few parts that weren't resided firmly in the grey area. Because of Cox's predicament, they went after white collar criminals, the ones unlikely to shoot back. Pearce hadn't been on the good side of the law for decades and Mia wondered what that would do to a person. And he wasn't just doing it somewhere in the world, this was Chicago, the city of Blume and ctOS, where a camera was always watching.

There was nothing there to see, though, he stepped onto the path and the people flowed around him as they would anyone else. Mia thought she caught one or two lingering glances in his direction, but that was all. Perhaps he'd reached some unspoken accord with the people here that allowed him to walk among them. But she couldn't detect any change in him, either, no indication that he was watching his back more, that he felt the constant scrutiny of the cameras at all.

He strode casually along the pavement towards a small marina, just beside where the tourist boat docked. Mia observed the small black pillar at the side of the marina, a scanner that'd raise an alert in case of trespassers, but would be inactive during the day. She liked to imagine she felt the scanner pass over her face, just because it was letting her pass didn't mean some software somewhere wasn't collecting all the data. The face cream didn't feel like as much of a joke now.

She climbed after Pearce into a speedboat, trying not to show how the dip of the boat made her uncomfortable.

She resisted the urge to ask where they were going, if Pearce didn't trust his safety measures, she doubted he'd be saying aloud where he was going, but she didn't have to wait too long.

A few minutes took them out to the abandoned lighthouse off the shore. It hadn't served any other purpose than looking picturesque for the tourists. A lighthouse was just something people expected to see in a place like that, but it served no navigational purpose anymore.

"Let me know when it's safe to talk," Mia said when Pearce braked the boat roughly by the dock and jumped on to it before the boat had slowed down much. Tense with oncoming nausea, Mia threw him the rope and hurried to get off the boat as fast as she could without seeming to do so.

"It's safe to talk," Pearce said. "I bought this place a few years ago, made sure it dropped off the map. It's got its power from a generator and its own water filtration. The lighthouse is technically a ctOS tower, but it's not on the map, either. The inside is shielded from signals and we're out of range for camcopters or most other surveillance. The shore cameras are too far away to get a clear picture."

She followed him up a set of worn metal steps to an open yard of cracked asphalt. Stacks of old crates and boxes were piled in a corner, broken pieces of junk littered the space, but any indication that the place was abandoned was dispersed by the loud music thrumming from the lighthouse.

"I need you for a job," Pearce said. "I can't do it alone."

Mia laughed, "And I'm the only one you could think of?"

Pearce glanced at her from the side, smiled with uncharacteristic warmth and said, "You're the one I trust."

He pushed open the door leading into the building at the foot of the lighthouse itself. The music volume spiked immediaely, but Mia thought she was okay with the selection. The inside of the building looked like a cyberpunk warehouse and any hacker's wet dream. At the back of the room, set up on tall racks was a set of flexible screens, some with surveillance feeds, other with data running over them. The underlying computers were neatly staked on rows of shelves behind them. The ventilation was running quietly and the temperature in the room was comforable.

Mia saw a man leaning over a workbench at the side, working with a soldering rod. He was lost in his work and didn't seem to realise they were there at first.

Behind another shelf, Mia spotted something that might be a kitchen and a table was staked with takeout cartons, pizza boxes and towers of paper coffee cups.

"Frewer," Pearce called and the man by the workbench looked up. "That's Mia, introduce her to Rose."

Frewer was a small man, thin and sickly looking with large wary eyes and a skittering demeanour. He put the soldering iron down and came over, his smile was shy and he never made eye-contact for more than a second, but the way his fingers moved over the display of his phone was faster than even Mia could follow.

"Hello," Frewer said, blinked past Mia and pointed to a chair. "Can you sit down? Uh, are you wearing the face cream?"

"Yeah, it's clever," Mia said. "Despite, you know, not being reliable. But better than nothing, in case Profiler finally patches something in against the scrambler."

"Yes," Frewer agreed. He walked to a shelf and picked up a roll of paper towels, which he offered to Mia awkwardly. "Wipe your face please and turn off your scrambler. The scrambler will stop working soon." He met her gaze for a second. "Yes. Everything will," he said earnestly.

Mia slipped her finger over the button on her phone, watched the brief alert flash in her vision, then ripped off a handful of paper towels to rub her face down with the rough material while Frewer focussed on his phone.

On the other end of the room, Pearce shrugged out of his jacket and put it across the back of a chair, then took off the gun-holster he'd worn underneath. He reached in the pocket of his jacket and a moment later the volume of the music went down.

An arched doorway connected the building to the base of the lighthouse, without any doors, Mia saw more computer equpiment staked there and a spiral staircase leading up. With the music turned down, she heard the metal whine quietly under the weight of someone, just before another man came into view.

He was tall, perhaps taller than Pearce, but he carried himself slightly hunched forward, negating it. He looked grizzled, a mess of grey hair and beard framing a narrow face, currently darkened by anger. His lanky body moved with smooth energy, like his frame was supported by steel-wire.

"'s Aiden back?" he barked. His expression briefly changed as it passed over Mia, but when he spotted Pearce by the chair he pulled himself up a little before he marched up to him.

"Hey, T-Bone, I've brought Mia back we can…"

"You and I," T-Bone snarled and slammed something down on the table next to Pearce. "Have to talk about this."

Pearce glanced down, briefly, kept his gaze fixed on T-Bone.

"You going through my things?" Pearce asked, voice low.

"You left it on the sink," T-Bone snapped, raised a warning finger in front of Pearce's face.

Mia had stopped rubbing her face, craned her neck to see what was going on, but at the distance she could only make out an orange prescription bottle on the table.

Pearce narrowed his eyes, the only indication of annoyance. "What?" he asked, impatience thick in his tone. "You're the one who's run a fever after we got back from Pawnee. We're on a schedule, if you're out, I'm working for two. That," he vaguely indicated the bottle. "Means being up and running for twenty hours straight. What's your point?"

T-Bone made an exasperated noise, seemed like he was about to shout, but stopped himself at the last moment.

"You know what that stuff does?"

He looked over his shoulder at Frewer. "You know, right? Tell him what it does!"

Frewer hesitated, clearly unsure if it was rhetorical or not. Quietly, Frewer said, "Reolon's a recent ADHD medication. It was praised for its effectiveness, but. But it's proving very addictive. And side-effects. You know? Side-effects are insomnia, headaches, loss of appetite, irritability, increased libido, depression. There are cases of suicides…"

T-Bone had snapped his attention back to Pearce while Frewer counted it down, impatience burning away at him.

"It messes with your _head_," T-Bone concluded sharply. "You've got to be _solid _if we do this."

Pearce tilted his head back, pushed his chin forward in challenge. "You want me out?" he asked. "Because I'm not eating healthy?"

Mia had the impression it was an old argument, or at least not the first time it's come up. Was he really offering to drop out, though? Pearce walking away from adversity? She almost heard Cox's voice in her head. _That'd be the day. _

"No! Jesus blistering fist…" T-Bone snapped and let the curse fade in exasperation. "I want your head in the game! Not up some pill bottle! I've seen it, you know." T-Bone shook his head in mock sadness. "Thought there was something off about you." He paused, added, "I put it down to stress, but… not when the truth's right in my face."

Pearce shifted forward, half an inch, but they'd already seemed to be barely as far away from coming to blows, so the tiny movement was nothing short of a declaration of war.

"I don't make mistakes," Pearce said testily.

"Like shooting at the drones in Pawnee?"

"Oh yeah, and you thought it was such a bad idea you just let me do it."

Pearce shook his head and Mia caught the sharp edge of amusement in his expression as he broke eye-contact with T-Bone and stepped around him. The gesture was intentionally dismissive of T-Bone and his argument.

T-Bone's eyebrows drew together harder, seething fury in his gaze as he made a few quick, long steps to catch up with Pearce, slapped a hand on his upper arm to yank him back around.

Pearce reacted instantly, twisted his arm out of the grip, pulled himself around and faced T-Bone.

Still watching inappropriately mesmerised by the display, Mia realised that they were _beyond _the point where they should have come to blows, except it hadn't happened.

"And her?" T-Bone demanded, pointing an arm at Mia. "Canon fodder? You remember what happened last time?"

"I'm _not…_" Mia began, but realised she was being completely ignored. Besides, she wasn't even sure it was untrue. Pearce hadn't explained anything of what he expected her to do and what help he thought she could render, but it was doubtlessly going to be dangerous. Perhaps Pearce had just recruited her to burn her off. Was she willing to bet her life on that he wasn't?

"Last time?" Pearce snorted. "Last time was _twenty-three_ years ago."

He stepped even closer, pulled himself up just slightly in an obvious attempt to stare the other man down. His expression turned vicious and he added, "And Clara was a double-dealing amateur who got what she deserved. _You_ can't go into Blume with me, she can."

He settled his fingers on T-Bone's sternum and shoved hard, forced T-Bone a step back.

"So get out of my face."

After the one step, T-Bone had easily rebalanced himself and made no attempt to move further, unless Pearce really did strike him. But in the face of Pearce's hostility, T-Bone seemed to calm himself, though no less steely in his poise.

"How's the knee?" he asked in a tone that almost sounded normal, a friend asking a friend, but something vicious lurked underneath.

Pearce startled, very faintly, betraying surprise in the tiny second before he remembered his composure.

"Of course I noticed," T-Bone said. "It comes and goes, but it's never not there. Is it?"

Something very close to disgust curled Pearce's lip and he inclined his head, half a nod and less than that of a concession.

He stepped past T-Bone, then turned around and marched for the door, no doubt aware that everyone's focus would be on his gait, though there was nothing noticably wrong.

"Aiden," T-Bone called, sounded just a little conciliatory now.

Pearce stopped, but let T-Bone's attention fall on his impassive back. T-Bone crossed his arms over his chest, "I don't want to fight you, but there's a very narrow magin of error here. If you can't keep it together…"

Unlike T-Bone, Mia could still see Pearce's face, enough to make out the contradictory mix of anger and underlying exhaustion. He noticed her scrutiny and a small sardonic smile cut up his expression. He shook his head again, perhaps as an answer to T-Bone, and started walking again.

As he passed her, he said, "Welcome to the old men's club."

He left the building, leaving behind a leaden silence still filled with the music blathering on ineffectively against the tension.

T-Bone slapped at the pill bottle and send it flying into a corner, then he stalked away into another room, clattering with something.

Uncertainly, Mia sought out Frewer's gaze, who had stopped his fidgeting and seemed deep in thought.

She said, "What did I get myself into?"

"Bad things," Frewer said sagely, fell silent again as he thought about it. "Blume has a new OS ready to go and they have lobbied for extensive legislative power. Yup. Well. We… we all, we can't go on if we don't get in again. The new, uh, the new OS is very advanced. We need a copy of its source code and the only place to get it is Blume HQ."

"You're planning to break into Blume HQ? Tech Meadows?" She whistled. "Well fuck me."

Frewer said nothing, tabbed something on his phone and then suddenly fixed her so sharply she felt pinned until she realised he was using the lenses to scan in her face.

"It's… " Frewer started when he was done and looked back down at his phone. "Well, Ray isn't _wrong. _Aiden is… I know the meds, it's… not good._" _

Mia frowned. "Oh come on, Pearce isn't some junkie," she stated, but wasn't momentarily sure if she didn't just want to convince herself.

Frewer looked up, searched her face and was briefly still. "Maybe not, but he isn't what he used to be. No one is."

He shuffled away and went past the workbench and to the computer array at the back of the room. Mia slipped off her chair and stood uncertainly, wondering if she should go after Pearce, but not sure what she'd say if she did.

Something quietly hummed, pulled her attention away and she watched as a small black sphere lifted from where it had been resting on the workbench. The sound faded after takeoff and the drone hovered almost noiselessly. It slid through the air and stopped in front of Mia's face.

_[Hello Mia, I'm Rose.] _was displayed in Mia's left lens.

"Wow," she remarked, stunned. "What are you?" She looked past the drone at Frewer who flashed her a wide grin before he seemed to run out of convidence for it.

_[I was a tracking drone for Blume, but Tobias and Ray wrote a new programme for me.]_

"We're working on a voice output," T-Bone said, walking back inside. He seemed to have calmed down completely as he walked over to her. "But it's not ready yet."

"I'm sorry what I said about you," he said and held out his hand. "I'm Ray."

"Mia." She shook his hand. "And don't worry, I know that wasn't about me."

T-Bone's weathered face released only some of its tension.

"I heard something about a raid on Blume HQ?" she said.

He barked a laugh, reached out and slapped her shoulder with surprising strength.

"Yes, the lion's den. Seven stories down below Tech Meadows, where they're hiding their mainframe."

"Won't they have copies on other workstations?"

"Yes," T-Bone agreed, "with people working on them and they're a tight team. We can't hide among them. It's better we go for the server. We have an insider within Blume. He can't get a copy out, but he's our way in. We have a layout and a schedule to work with. Blume also still needs to coordinate with the city council, so there are leaks, too."

"But Tech Meadows…" Mia said. She'd spent hours online looking into the place, for no other reason than her own curiosity. She believed in that old adage that nothing was impenetrable, but Tech Meadows came damn close to it.

"I don't know about Aiden," T-Bone said with small growl and quick glance to where Pearce had vanished. "But I have a few aces up my sleeve. And I'm itching to play them, if you know what I mean. We can't hack the place, but there are still ways to ruin somebody's day."

* * *

The weather forecast had warned of a thunderstorm that night so Pearce pulled the canvas cover over their boats. Something to do with his hands that didn't involve balling them into fists, but he felt the tension running through his body, unwilling to be so easily disspellt.

Straightening away from the boats, his gaze passed over the lighthouse, tracked all the way up to the tip and his expression darkened, a frown so hard it threatened to settle as a headache right behind his eyes. He took his gaze away, ignored Chicago across the water and turned instead to follow the rocky shoreline of the island until he saw nothing but water in all directions.

He climbed to where a rock formed a natural bench and settled down, just above where gentle waves slipped over a narrow stretch of gravel beach.

He leaned his head back against the rock, lowered the lenses' transparency against the bright sky and logged on to an online poker game. It took a moment for the data to transfer through his proxies and firewalls, a second he found almost unbearbly long, but then the other players shimmered into existence around him, weirdly hovering above the water or placed through the rock before the simulation fixed itself and stopped trembling as it compensated for his eye movements. It was what people called an 'honest' setup. Players wore avatars to protect their identity, but they mimicked the players' behaviour and even some of their facial expressions, allowing for a poker game under almost realistic conditions.

Barely a round in, Pearce found his mood slipping further at the beginning of a losing streak. His hands were bad, but what was worse, his opponents hands were too good for them to throw the games, slowly syphoning away at Pearce's budget. Not that money was an issue exactly, it was the principle of the thing.

The low churn of footsteps beat itself into his attention and he turned his head, the simulation adjusted, stayed in place like it would if it was a solid table and real people, not pixels painted on the insides of his lenses.

Pearce watched T-Bone make his way toward him and considered ignoring him, focussing on the game and perhaps have a chance to turn it around, but it was an idle thought. He could push against T-Bone, but if he drove him away, he'd have pushed to hard.

Clenching his teeth, Pearce switched out of the game.

Wordlessly, T-Bone held out a bottlecan. Pearce deliberately looked it over, raised his brows.

"Are you trying to apologise with discount beer or do we have to talk about my drinking, too?" he asked, with a sneer placed on _drinking. _

T-Bone kept holding the beer out to him, but when Pearce made no move to take it, he put it down on the ground by Pearce side.

"Team," T-Bone started, visibly forcing himself to keep his voice level. "You know how that works?"

"We're a team?" Pearce asked.

T-Bone shook his head, sighed a little and looked out over the lake. "I don't wanna play mind games with you," he said finally. "I just want to know where you stand, because if you don't know… or… if it's because you only get through the day with a pill bottle…" he waved his hand in the air to stop the argument before it started. "Let's just drop the whole shit show and move on, like you wanted to."

When Pearce said nothing, T-Bone shook his head and added, "Maybe I just got it wrong. You wanted out, maybe I misunderstood why. Maybe you've got to. Just… _talk to me _about it."

Pearce didn't answer for a long time, narrowed eyes focussed unrelenting on the other man.

"Do you know what I think?" Pearce asked. "I think your projecting. It's you who hasn't been reliable. You got sick after Pawnee, not me. You can't go into Blume HQ with me. You're the weak link, I've been holding up my end."

T-Bone frowned, took a breath to say something, but Pearce didn't let him.

"Come to think of it, the only one disrupting the 'team' is you, because you don't trust me, I didn't fuck up, you have no reason to doubt me."

T-Bone jostled a little in his place, caught between leaving too much unsaid and making the confrontation worse. "You haven't even noticed," he said finally. "How long have you been taking that stuff?"

Pearce shrugged, then shook his head, keeping his gaze pinned on the other man. "Come back when you got anything against me."

He deliberately repositioned his phone on his knees, flipped back to the poker app so that T-Bone had to see it.

"I'll do my share, and I'll do yours, too. Just don't judge from the sidelines," Pearce added with some finalty. He flicked his gaze down and added, "But thanks for the beer."

Dismissed, on this or on beyond the dividing line to insulting, T-Bone didn't leave immediately, but his face had unexpectedly settled, though his frown hadn't softened by much. He waited a moment while Pearce gave every impression of diving back into his game.

T-Bone said, "For the record, I notice when you try to play me."

Pearce passed a bored glance over him and said nothing, but T-Bone seemed to grow tired of the argument from one moment to the next, he turned away and marched back to the lighthouse.

* * *

For days, tension soured the atmosphere in the lighthouse, because while it was large for just four people, with plenty of corners to retreat to, but it was also an island and trips to shore were budgeted to account for the inherent risk. Both Pearce and T-Bone were pushing the plan forward hard, knowing they were on borrowed time. The two men didn't _talk_. They exchanged _words_, living like this demanded they were civil to each other. And all other encounters functioned on a level of brutal professionalism that cut through the stale summer heat like a blizzard. Nothing was solved between them, but they managed to work with staggering efficiency.

Frewer kept to himself, he was the only one who didn't leave the island at all, just tinkered on one thing or another. He'd talk if Mia approached him, but she always had the impression he'd much rather she were elsewhere, so she let him be.

She attempted to hold a conversation with Rose, but the drone's AI was rudimentary. The drone served as the guard dog of the island, but it was not useful in the larger scheme of things. The magnetic field T-Bone had unleashed on the drones over his old junkyard in Pawnee had wiped the drone's drives clean. It was running an entirely new OS, written by T-Bone and Frewer, more a comforting pastime than the forging of a weapon. Some information could still be gleaned from it, of course, some conclusions drown from it's hardware. They knew the drones were networked and shared cpu capabilities, so they probably became smarter the more of them were close together. The drones were armed with a taser and had enough power for five charges, before the drone would have to risk its functioning, but whether it was programmed for self-sacrifice or capable to reason on that level remained a mystery.

"Who's your insider?" Mia had asked, grouped around a large table with old-school blueprints spread out and a layer of 3D reconstruction on top of it.

"Derek Wyland," T-Bone had answered and smirked a little when he added. "Got my old job, actually. Blume hires the strangest people for that position."

"Indeed," Frewer had agreed quietly and earned a sharp look from T-Bone, who then cleared his throat and continued.

"Anyway, Derek-boy's other occupation was… something else. He used to be in DedSec, back when there still was a DedSec."

"He was on the Council of Daves," Pearce had added. "We," he said and looked at T-Bone, "don't know if Blume suspects him, but chances are if they do, Wyland would've been taken down already."

"But they could be watching him," Frewer had said. "They do that."

After that, the conversation had soured again with Pearce frostily declaring his setup with Wyland was secure as if the mere suggestion it might not be was a personal affront. Mia didn't doubt Pearce and the others had used every conceivable precaution, but she tentatively agreed with Frewer: Blume was watching and they could have so many reason for leaving Wyland alone. In fact, she thought Wyland would make a fantastic bait in the grander scheme of things. He had access to Blume, enough to get them in, enough to give them an edge. If Blume wanted to catch Ray Kenney and Aiden Pearce, they had to give them at least the illusion of a fighting chance. Otherwise both men would simply go to ground and disappear.

Mia doubted the thought hadn't occured to the others, so she kept her own council. She knew it would be dangerous, she'd known from the start, after all.

The lighthouse was never silent, it groaned and chittered quietly to itself, the water constantly beat against the rock of the tiny, artificial island it was built on. Metal chafed thinly in slowly rusting hinges as Mia climbed the steps to the upper level of the lighthouse. Up here, the building seemed to sway ever so slightly as the early gusts of a thunderstorm came in over the lake.

The air was cool and fresh, though and she automatically took a deep breathe when she stepped out on the catwalk and went to the railing, put her arms over it and leaned forward.

On the left of her was the city of Chicago, glittering in a million different lights, a gaudy counterpoint against the simplistic stars above it. Even as she watched, the clouds began to obscure the view.

She turned her face into the wind, away from the city and over the thicker blackness of the lake, only here and there broken by the marker lights of a ship, jostled on the turbulent water.

"Couldn't sleep?" Pearce asked and the tiny spark of shock his unexpected presence caused was almost pleasant, a tiny burst of adrenaline tingling in her throat.

She turned around and peered into the darkness along the side of the catwalk. Pearce was reclining on a lounger of some kind, diagonally slotted across the catwalk, blocking the way. The distant lights traced the outline of his body, caught in tiny spots of blinking gold in the whiskey tumbler he held resting on his stomach. She saw that he was dressed for bed, a pair of track pants and a worn out muscle shirt that left his upper body exposed to the cool air.

"Same?" she asked back.

He snorted quietly in faint amusement, instead of an answer, he said, "Are you scared?"

"Scared?" she repeated and laughed at little at the notion. "No. Anxious. Worried. On edge. Yes. But not scared. I make mistakes when I'm scared, so I don't do that anymore."

"That's semantics," he observed.

She shrugged, "Hey, if you don't want me along, I don't have to be."

"That's not what I said." His voice had grown steadily quieter, dropping to an almost hypnotic whisper, vibrating slightly with the wind. He took a sip from the glass, shifted his shoulders and tucked his other arm behind his neck.

"No, I guess you didn't," Mia agreed. She hesitated for a second, watched the first sparks of lightning streak down above the water. "Do you have some more of that whiskey?"

He moved again, untucked his hand and reached into the shadows in the floor by the lounger, picked up the bottle. He straightened up a little to refill his glass before he held the bottle out to her. She took it from him and Pearce relaxed back again.

The bottle was a quarter full, caught a dull glow when she held it out to the light, took a sniff, then saluted with the bottle in Pearce's direction.

"Cheers," she said and took a careful sip. Pearce grunted an affirmative and drank, too.

They were silent for a time, Mia chased the feeling of the alcohol's heat through her body, was surprised that it seemed to loosen up some knot deep in her belly she hadn't known was there.

"You know I had a crush on you?" Mia asked. "When I was working for you?"

She tilted her head to watch him in the darkness, but she wasn't entirely sure he was smiling or not, or what it meant if he did. She peeled a finger away from the bottle to point it at him and said, "And I think you just pretended not to notice until it went away on its own."

"Seemed the least awkward solution," he said.

"But you were protecting me, too," she continued. "I didn't realise it at the time, but you never wanted me in the line of fire. Whenever something happened you weren't sure you could control, you made me stay home."

"I needed you behind monitors," he pointed out. "You think I would've wasted your talent just to keep you safe?"

She thought about it, shrugged slightly again and took another sip from the bottle, letting her thoughts run through the variables.

Finally, she said, "I think you never had just one reason for anything."

Unexpected, Pearce chuckled and said, "I multitask."

Mia turned away and put her forearms on the railing, took a deep breath and already smelled how charged the air had become.

"Who was she?" she asked. "Clara, I mean. You never mentioned her."

If Pearce had refused to answer, she wouldn't be surprised, but she added, "She's dead?"

"She was a DedSec hacker," Pearce said, voice a quiet rasp, undulating slightly with each gust of wind. "I hired her, she was good at tracking down information. Helped me find my niece's killer, got caught up in the fray. The Club had her assassinated."

A lightning streaked across the sky, lit the bulging mass of clouds, enormous and low above them.

"Why does Ray blame you?"

This time, Pearce didn't answer for a long time.

"That's ancient history," he said finally, an edge of warning in his tone and despite her curiosity, Mia didn't dare test it and push him further. Tensions were bad enough as it was. She took a sip of the whiskey instead.

After a moment Pearce said, "I wonder how much acid Cox has been spewing these past few years."

She thought she saw the ghost of that other hacker, just briefly, hovering around them, wondering if Pearce was thinking about her, but she was willing to let him change the topic, too.

She laughed at the thought of Cox, but only for a moment and without mockery, "Oh, a lot. Can you blame her? You crippled her and that little trip in the trunk? She still gets twitchy in small enclosed spaces."

She turned back around and raised her hand, made Pearce swallow back whatever interjection he was about to make. Mia continued, "But that's between the two of you. She knew what she was getting into. Made you her enemy."

"But it wasn't just Cox," he pointed out.

Mia thought it was unfair that she had to have this conversation now, entirely without preparation instead of enjoying a good night's sleep before a hard day's work.

"No," she agreed. She glanced at him, but what she could see of his face revealed nothing but a calm intensity, much like he always looked when he was focussed on something.

"I was young," Mia said and snorted a laugh. "Such a stupid line. I made a mistake. No… like, I made one mistake and then, because I was trying to fix it, I made more mistakes." She sighed, thought about it, aimed a raised finger and the bottle at him accusingly, then said, "And that was one hell of a bitch move."

Pearce snorted a laugh, but it lasted only a moment and vanished when his phone gave a sharp alarm sound.

Pearce was on his feet instantly.

"Lenses," he commanded.

Mia, feeling dumbstruck, obeyed without a second thought. She fished her digital lenses from her pocket and blew on them slighty, though their self-cleaning surface made them resistant to much worse treatment. Awkwardly, she manevouered with the whiskey bottle and fingered one of the lenses in her eye, blinked to activate it.

[ETA 00:15:42] Rose's interface announced, counting down ominously.

"What…?" she started as Pearce stood up.

"We're being invaded," he explained and walked to the door, dipping into the gloom. A moment later, a low thud revealed that he hadn't bothered with the steep stairs to get down a level.

Shaking off her shock, Mia finally ditched the whiskey and hurried to follow him down.

* * *

_End of _Gunmetal Sky: Widow's Walk – Part 1_

* * *

**Reference: **LUNAR Nano lifted wholesale from Ken MacLeod's The Execution Channel, where it's actually _Lancôme_ Nano, but real-life brands are always immersion breaking for me. Also, if there's anything in here that's also in any of MacLeod's books, that's where I stole it from.

**Also,** Reolon is a fictional ADHD medication with side-effects and addictiveness cranked up to eleven for dramatic effect.


	67. Gunmetal Sky: Widow's Walk - Part 2

**NOTE: I messed up the timestamps in the last chapter. They do not, in fact, have fifteen _hours_ at their disposal…**

**Warning: **Minor attempt at humour in one scene.

**Too much inventory: **

BAR-9oo: fictional newer model of the biometric rifle Aiden uses in the game, stylised because I like it better. Also, I didn't realise that smart guns actually are a thing.

Killdrive: These things apparently exist in real life, too, called USB killer, it instantly fries any computer it's plugged into.

Aiden's phone is the same he uses in _Empty Darkness_, styled after the "Philips fluid flexible smartphone design concept".

**Irrelevant Recap: **In _Empty Darkness,_ it's mentioned that Hollywood's making a film about Aiden and that the film's production was a dogged by scandals and leaks (as if, you know, a hacker wasn't too happy with the project.)

* * *

**_Gunmetal Sky: Widow's Walk – Part 2**

* * *

Aiden landed smoothly at the bottom of the stairs. In a series of smooth movements he went to the folding bed he'd barely used and slipped on his clothes and boots, slipped on his gun holster and snapped the phone closed around his wrist.

Contrary to what T-Bone believed, Aiden knew he was getting old. He'd observed the signs for years, realised the odd twinge in his joints, the way he had to invest ever more hours into training and sparring, how the distances on his obstacle courses seemed to stretch more and more. He'd realised he was growing old when the injuries he sustained took a day or so longer to heal. He'd understood it, once and for all, when Marcus Brenks had nearly got the better of him on the train. But then, Marcus was just another ghost haunting him, one of too many, making it hard to understand what they were staying and harder to care either way.

Back then, he'd understood he had exactly two options: he could slow down, or he could push harder. So he'd pushed and he felt time and the world push back, a little bit harder every day, but he wasn't giving ground just yet.

Mia landed on the floor behind him, made eye contact, then rushed to her own pile of clothes to quickly dress and arm herself. Aiden considered giving her a quick speech on their emergency plan, but he simply assumed T-Bone or Frewer to have done that already. There'd been enough opportunities for it and Mia didn't seem all that confused.

[ETA 00:15:19]

Aiden dropped down the stairs to the ground floor. He spotted T-Bone struggling stiffly into a shirt while he hurried to this workstation. A moment later, Frewer appeared from another corner, looking as bedraggled when shocked from sleep as he did when he was wide awake.

They'd planned for this very situation. They were ready to ditch this place and a quarter hour of advance warning was more than what they'd need. Backup their most vital data and wipe the drives, then make a run for it.

Aiden ignored the two other men, and stepped to his computer, it linked with his Lens automatically, providing a HUD with additional information as he accessed the logs to see what had triggered the alarm.

Camera drones couldn't fly out over Lake Michigan, maybe the advanced models could, the ones employed out at Blume HQ, but right now, Blume monitored traffic out on the water via satellite. Aiden didn't know if there were plans to replace them, they were costly to maintain after all.

Aiden logged in and accessed the network through an old admin account he'd set up for just this moment. The remote access was slower, working through the proxies half a world away before it was rerouted back to him. It chafed his nerves.

[ETA 00:12:08]

For a moment, he considered turning the proxies off. A ctOS centre accessing a ctOS network using a legitimate account shouldn't raise any alarms anywhere. But then, Blume already knew where they were hiding, they might be tracking traffic to this place and Aiden didn't want to give away the extent of his knowledge.

Finally, the connection was established and the interface appeared on the screen. He selected the coordinates near the lighthouse to review the recordings made the last few minutes.

Radar tech and image enhancement allowed for high-quality video, despite the thick cloud cover above the lake, giving him a clear view of a ship, dark shape outlined only by the technology, because its position lights were off.

Aiden watched as men climbed into motorboats along the side of the larger vessel. The satellite footage provided only hints about their equipment, but the speed and efficiency of their movements implied at least paramilitary training and high-end material. Blume's Corporate Police had combat gear on that scale, though they were trying not to show it off so much on US soil. The official line was these people were necessary to ensure the safety of Blume personnel and infrastructure in third world countries. At home, Blume promised to bring them in only in the event of a terror attack.

Well, Aiden guessed it wasn't much of a lie. The media had started referring to him as a terrorist some years ago, when the mood had began to turn from him, the romanticism of the vigilante coming off like cracked paint. He still had fans, of course, but in a propaganda war against Blume and the government, he'd always known he'd lose. These days, he relied more on intimidation and apathy, though some recent Hollywood project about the Fox had reignited some of the public's adoration.

Aiden had had the occasional look at BCP files and recruitment, and while some of it was innocuous, mostly BCP was Blume's elite, private army. A tightly-knit and well-paid troop, used to getting their way and the job done, regardless of the odds. If Blume were willing to throw them into action in Chicago on this scale meant they expected it to pay off.

"We've got four times six BCP Elites," Aiden announced, counting down men per motorboat. Aiden switched to live footage, but couldn't find the unlit boats on the water.

"Check the shore," T-Bone said. "We're about to lose ctOS access."

He hit a key and the HUD on the Lens expanded.

[ETA 00:07:59]

[CTOS 00:03:00]

[PWR 00:05:00]

Aiden blinked irritably at how much space it occupied, but didn't waste time on a complaint, only shot T-Bone a quick look when the other man stood up from his workstation and hurried to swipe the backup drives into a bag, dropped a killdrive into the workstation and then he hurried to the weapon's locker.

Aiden accessed the network, only scrolled back a few minutes, cycled through the cameras on the marina and the Lakefront Trail. It was empty, which it shouldn't be even in the middle of the night. Late night revellers should be about, some drunks or homeless, maybe even a drug pusher too high on his own product to remember he was being watched, but the paths were all swiped clean.

Except, of course, for the dark vans that had moved into position and, in the live feed, stood motionless along the shore. Aiden supposed that, if he had time to check, he'd find Blume or the cops had closed off the Trail in the area. He counted at least six vans, could be eight in them if they wanted to comfortable with all their gear, could be a lot more if they didn't care…

Without warning, electricity snapped and crackled, a fuse blew on Aiden's machine and snapped at his fingers making him snatch them away with a snarled curse. A moment later, the lights went out. Those servers with a generator connection remained running, but the majority of their rig stuttered to an abrupt halt, leaving only the uncomfortable absence of the previously ever present humming.

"Your calculation was off," Aiden observed.

"It was a rough guess," T-Bone grunted. "Not a sacred vow."

He slung a rifle over his shoulder and packed two bags, stepped in close right in front of Aiden, pulled to his full height. Even in the semi-darkness, his teeth glinted as he peeled his lips and beard away into what might have been a grin of some kind, or just a sneer dressed up as one.

"But we got everything," he said smugly. It was probably too dark for him to see Aiden raise his brows in answer.

T-Bone glanced over his shoulder to where Frewer still stood bent in front of a monitor, his hand already on the last drive, ready to pick it up and pocket it the moment the data transfer was finished.

"We're almost ready," Frewer said, looking back at T-Bone, a deer in the headlight of the monitor's glow.

Aiden stepped past T-Bone as if he had never been too close and strode to the weapon's locker. Handgun and baton into their respective holsters, he squared his shoulders until the straps settled perfectly, then reached for the BAR-9oo, a small confirmation briefly flared up in the Lens as the weapon recognised him as its owner.

"Mia," he called as he turned around, he spotting the jutting barrel of a rifle over her shoulder. "You're with me."

He picked up the last bag from the table as he marched for the door, glance passing over Mia to assess her state of readiness. She was dressed and armed, face set in grim determination, so much for keeping her out of the line of fire. It might have been true back then, but he couldn't afford to this time. He only hoped she really knew how to handle herself.

Rose hovered down from where she'd been up in the lighthouse, circled around them on head-height.

"I'm taking Rose," Frewer announced, settled his hand on his phone to feed the drone new parameters.

Stopping in the doorway, Aiden glanced back and made eye contact with T-Bone and this time, despite the tension between them, the moment fell into place.

T-Bone said, "Bonfire is live."

Aiden flashed him a grin, only now the rush of adrenaline was making itself felt, something too uncomfortably close to excitement. Idly, he wondered if there was something to what T-Bone had said, that this was the drug doing its thing on his mind, but as far as he was concerned, T-Bone had confused cause and effect and as a result, was wrong on both counts.

[ETA 00:04:13]

* * *

By the time they filed outside, the storm had reached them, hard wind tearing at them, lightning crackling and lighting the bulging clouds above. Some errant drops of water punched into their faces, either from the beginning rain or from the lake being whipped by gushes of wind.

Pearce ripped the covers from one of the boats, didn't care that the wind blew it away until it caught on the fence around the lighthouse. He tossed the bag at T-Bone, who managed to catch it, but put it down so he could pull the cover from another boat. He quickly loaded the bags into the boat, then climbed in with Frewer hurrying after him.

Frewer settled down awkwardly, focussed on his phone and Rose hovered after him, settled in the seat by his side. T-Bone climbed into the front seat, behind the wheel and started the engine, but its roaring was nearly lost in the storm.

Mia stopped on the dock, finally realising what had irked her since the moment she'd come outside.

"The shore is dark," she called. "They blacked out the entire shoreline."

"Yeah," Pearce grunted without much inflection. "Get in."

Mia did as she was told, didn't like it as Pearce shifted out of her way, making it clear that he expected her to drive.

"My Lenses don't have any night vision," she said. "And I've never driven a speedboat."

"I know, it's pretty much like a car."

She missed the move he made on his phone, but the HUD in her Lens changed, outlined the immediate surrounding of the boat and as she looked up, it marked the shoreline for her. The speedboat must have sensors of it's own, Pearce had linked her up with it.

"Try to hit waves at an angle," Pearce added. Beside them, T-Bone's and Frewer's boat drifted off from the pier for a little, before T-Bone accelerated the boat, took it in a tight circle and vanished into the darkness, heading away from the island.

"Don't make your turns too sharp, head in that direction," Pearce added. His outstretched arm aimed for the shore further down, not heading straight for it, but it wouldn't take them out of range of the area BCP had locked off.

The small hairs on her neck stood off as she took the boat away from the dock, wondering if the enemy speedboats were already converging on the lighthouse island. The thunderstorm would hide the noise of their engines in the same way she heard her own speedboat only faintly, sensed the power of it's motors as it pushed itself through the boiling water.

In the first few moments, Mia wasn't entirely sure if she agreed with Pearce and whether steering the speedboat really was like driving a car or if it was just similar enough to make the differences irritating. The water's resistance was different than the comparatively minor friction of asphalt, with and without the thunderstorm whipping around them.

She focussed on the HUD display to orient herself, tried not to think of what was going on behind her — or what it was she was heading into. Pearce had designated her as the driver, so watching her back was his responsibility. She couldn't come up with someone more competent, but the annoying, hunted prickling at the back of her head was a far more primal response.

Pearce didn't sit down, only settled a knee on the seat and kept his body upright, one hand shielding his eyes from the spray and the wind, keeping an eye on the shore and on the rapidly retreating lighthouse as well as the data scrolling over his Lenses. His his rifle pointed downward, almost too casually, but he was ready to snap it up instantly.

It would be several minutes until they hit the shore, Mia guessed, judging from the time it took when going at a normal, leisurely pace and good weather.

"What's the plan?" Mia asked and added, "I need to know."

Pearce's communication had been all over the place for days and T-Bone's and Frewer's was in a similar state. It wasn't so much a need for secrecy as it was an erratic sense for what needed and didn't need to be explained. These men had been working together for a long time, incorporating Mia as the newcomer wasn't coming quite naturally. She'd known there was an emergency plan, but no one had ever bothered to give her the details.

"The most likely way to attack the lighthouse," Pearce said. "Comes from the water. Keeping the shore covered means we have nowhere to run in case we escape. T-Bone and Frewer are heading out to the lake and swing back around further out. With luck, well outside BCP's perimeter. Right now," he said, a finger briefly sliding over the screen of his phone to access that particular data. "They're surrounding the island. It's dark, they made sure of it, so they got night vision, probably Lenses, but it doesn't matter. Bonfire…"

He trailed off, something else catching his attention and his shoulders hunched forward as he got a little lower, gaze fixed ahead of them.

"Some sort of trap," Mia said. "Of course Bonfire is a trap, what else would it be?"

"Yeah," he agreed, but didn't elaborate. "We're almost in range, don't slow down, that area has breakwater, you hit it fast enough, we're on dry land."

"It's gonna be a rocky landing," she remarked more to herself. "What about Ray and Tobias?" she asked. "Are we their distraction or are they our backup?"

Pearce snorted a short laugh. "There's no help coming," he had turned his face into the headwind, had to raise his voice to make himself heard. "There's a parking garage just across the street, you can take any of the cars, theoretically, but remote unlocks are hit and miss these days, so there's a 770S parked on ground floor."

Something in his voice alerted her and she spared him a quick, sidelong glance. She'd asked for exactly these sorts of details, it was what she'd need if she was separated from him and needed to find her own way out, it didn't have to mean anything other than that. But it would be information she'd need if he didn't make it, too.

"Here it comes," he said and the wind stole his words before he could add any sort of inflection, any indication of what he was thinking. Mia was nearly blind, it was too dark to see her immediate surrounding and the glow of downtown Chicago, the parts that weren't blacked out and the HUD on her Lenses as well as the bright flashes of lightning behind them prevented her eyes to adjust properly. But she did see the muzzle flashes, lined up like Christmas lights along where she knew the shore was. She heard the rattle only distantly, ducked instinctively and veered the boat slightly to the side, slowed them down and the salve punched into the water right in front of them.

"Keep going!" Pearce ordered sharply and she braced herself against the resistance of the water and the boat as she turned it sharper towards the shore, the acceleration slightly delayed in the waves recoiling from the shore.

He straightened, seemingly without any trouble on the unsteady ground and levelled his gun. The low, dark bark of his BAR made itself heard far better than the enemies' guns, short bursts, giving him a heartbeat to aim in the dark rather than just fire blind, even if Mia assumed there were more than enough enemies ahead of them. Another salve went over them, most hit the water, but something punched through the back of the boat and it shuddered under the impact.

Mia forced herself to focus on keeping the boat steady, getting there and trying not think of what would happen when she did. A lightning struck somewhere close by, deafening in ways the gunfire failed to be and for a long long second, the shoreline was illuminated and burned itself into her memory. The sharp-edged grey rocks of the breakwater they were heading toward almost head-on, a stretch of grass behind it, then the Lakefront trail. She saw the black bulks of the BCP vans, parked all along the path strategically to serve as cover for the elite private army Blume had fashioned their security guards into.

She also saw Pearce pick out his targets in the brightness, downing a soldier near a van and another just beside him, who was ducking into the shadow of a kiosk. When the light faded, the blackness was even worse and Mia almost flinched when Pearce briefly ducked back down, gun resting on the windshield, but he focussed on his phone, rapidly tapping something that Mia thought looked far too complicated for a last-minute saving throw.

She heard Pearce hiss, a frustrated sound, something far more frightening than gunshot salves raining down around them, but she didn't have time to ask and whatever he did, either it had worked or he'd given up, because he pulled himself back upright without offering an explanation.

The boat's sensors fired an alarm as she neared the breakwater. Vaguely, she thought how fucked they'd be if the boat happened to have an emergency brake assist, but there was no time even to worry about it.

"Bonfire's ready," Pearce shouted and levered himself over the windshield and crouched on the bow. She had time to recognise his words as some kind of warning, just enough she'd check her response.

A moment later, the sky behind her lit on fire with an explosion, followed by a low rumbling noise, indistinguishable from thunder at first, but it kept building, like pressure, deafening and ongoing roaring, leaving a ringing in her ears despite the distance. Several smaller explosions followed, each adding another light of bright white and orange and red, bathing the quietly ominous shoreline into a hellish glow.

They hit the breakwater, screaming metal as the boat's hull scraped over the rocks. It slithered for a moment until the hull tore open and the boat jolted to the side and dropped, nearly shaking Mia off.

Pearce had used the forward momentum to leap from the boat, he'd cleared the breakwater and landed on the grass and rolled to his feet, with the same motion, he tossed a grenade to his right. It exploded on impact, protecting his flank and giving him the precious second he needed to reach the enemy.

For the moment shielded by the bulk of the boat from the soldiers and their guns, Mia chanced a look back out over the lake and the conflagration the lighthouse island had become. The lighthouse tower itself was gone, detonated and collapsed on itself, the parts scattered into the churning waters. The island was just rock and the buildings had been mostly metal, fenced in by chain-link. The entire place must have been rigged and drenched in fire accelerant to make it burn like that, bright flames licking so high, they seemed to meet and join the bulging thunderclouds.

The BAR barked, not too far away and Mia snapped her attention back around, her own gun ready. The impact of the boat on the shore was still beating in her muscles, made her a little shaky on the suddenly steady ground under her feet. She realised she'd not heard any other shots but the BAR since their rocky landing and as she tracked the mayhem along the path, the pieces assembled themselves in her mind.

Night vision, that had been the key from the start and why it hadn't bothered Pearce that she lacked it. Their enemies did, they had come prepared for combat in darkness. Blowing up the lighthouse and making it burn like a beacon would fry any night vision equipment and blind anyone unfortunate enough to be wearing it. It was what Pearce had been hacking before, getting into the equipment and shutting down the auto-gating technology that would've protected their owners, leaving them double unprepared for the attack.

It was hard to gauge how much of an advantage it gave Pearce, or how long it would last. Trained soldiers could fight on instinct and recovered quickly and adapted to new circumstances, there was no reason to suspect Blume had brought anything but their best to bear against them.

Still lit by the brightness of the distant flames and the occasional flashes of lightning, Mia saw Pearce emerge from behind one of the vans, press his back against it and pause for a moment. He ducked down, stepped forward and swiped the feet away from the man who edged around the back of the van. The man tried to roll away, but Pearce lunged for him, got hold of him and yanked him back, displaced some of the combat gear, shoved the man away and brought his gun up, tearing through the man's exposed neck. Pearce didn't stay, he was moving too fast to allow the soldiers to surround him, bring him down with sheer numbers. They had parked the vans strategically against an assault from the water, but Pearce was behind that line now and using the cover to drop in and out of sight as he pleased, striking fast and hard and was gone before his enemies could make him a target. The shots aimed for him bit into the vans, into the kiosk, into tree trunks where he'd been a moment ago, only for him to swing around instantly, back between them with the BAR.

Soldiers stationed further up and down the shore were already mobilising and converging on them. Shaking off how rattled she was, no longer wasting time on watching Pearce, Mia ran for cover before her chance was lost.

As it turned out, Pearce didn't seem to need any backup. In fact, Mia's impression was her presence bothered him more than helped. He wasn't used to fighting alongside someone else, he covered his own angles, watched his own back. The small advantaged of blinded enemies had dropped him in their middle and it was where he was doing the worst damage.

Mia found a well-guarded spot, on the wall below street-level, crouched behind a bench and picked off whoever she could with her rifle. The soldiers' clothing was bulletproof, of course, but the impact of bullets still slowed them down or knocked them off their feet and she aimed for the weak spots she knew about. Along the neckline and the faces, their hands and the weapons they held, bullets biting into ankles and feet, anything that'd take them out of the fight.

Without the thunderstorm, they'd have to worry about helicopters or drones, but they couldn't fly in the wind. Mia briefly wondered why Blume hadn't postponed their assault, waited until the worst had passed. Perhaps they thought they wouldn't need that advantage, or perhaps there was some other reason Mia didn't know about. At any rate, not having to defend against attacks from above as well was certainly welcome.

A group of three soldiers came running down the path, throw themselves into cover behind a van, Mia tracked their movements, waited until they'd be visible again, but she heard Pearce fire the BAR in their direction. The van dipped to a side as the bullet punctured a tyre. Another shot and a thin line of fire traced a path under the van, lit the puddle of liquid that had collected there.

Looking back, Mia spotted Pearce on top of a bench, gun levelled at the van. He shot again and this time the fuel finally ignited properly, the fire tracing back into the tank. The van exploded, adding another point of searing brightness, rending the van useless as cover. Mia coughed when the wind brought a gust of black smoke her way. She saw the scattered bodies of the soldiers who'd been taking cover behind it. Two weren't moving, the third was struggling back to his feet groggily.

Mia took aim, but didn't shoot, he didn't seem to try to get back into the fight, he was merely trying to get away. She lowered her gun, looked back to where Pearce had been, found him taking a running jump up along the side of the kiosk, where two soldiers had their back pressed against it. They'd seen him approach and fired at him, but missed. The men withdrew from the kiosk to get Pearce back into their sight, but he'd dropped down behind it, where they couldn't see him, circled around it and came at them from the side. One took a burst of bullets into the face. The second man whipped around, but Pearce used the BAR to smash his gun aside and the shots hissed past him. Pearce stepped in close and simply punched his fist into the man's face. The man staggered, but would've held his balance, but Pearce untangled their guns and snapped the butt of his rifle up, into the man's chin. This time, he dropped back, clearly dazed, tried to bring his own gun back up, but Pearce had stepped back, brought the BAR up and shot him.

Pearce stepped over him before he'd even stopped twitching.

Another van came driving down the path, it swerved to a halt a little away, spewed out at least six men. Mia flinched when suddenly a solid shadow loomed by her side, ready to fight, but a slow shudder of relief ran through her when she recognised Pearce.

"We need to go," he said, voice rough from the fight, breathing a little harder, but he seemed miraculously unharmed in all of this. More vans became visible in the distance, driving toward them.

Mia nodded and slipped to her feet. She opened fire on the first van, more suppressant fire than any attempt to hit anyone. A step behind her, she sensed Pearce make a sharp movement, and watched him throw something she recognised, with disconcerting slowness, as a grenade. She'd seen them in Pearce's arsenal in the lighthouse, but had missed him equipping them. The grenade didn't have a timed fuse, but it exploded on impact, giving the people close to it no chance to avoid it. The detonation wasn't strong enough to topple over the fan, but it scattered the men who had been hiding behind it, injuring or even killing them

Pearce stepped past her, his hand on her arm for just a second to remind her to keep moving. She ran after him, up the steps to street-level. For the moment, there was no pursuit.

#

Mia was braced for a car chase. Considering the size of this operation, there was no way Blume would simply let them go just because they overwhelmed them on the shoreline. There had to be contingencies in place for that, it wasn't the first time Blume did this sort of thing — though the first time on American soil, as far as Mia knew — it wasn't even the first time they had gone toe to toe with Aiden Pearce. Blume knew what they were up against and they certainly knew what it was going to take.

And, indeed, there was a struggle, but if Mia wasn't partisan, she'd feel like the game was unfairly biased in Pearce's favour. After everything she'd learned from Ray and Frewer in her time with them, after everything she knew about the future of IT and what Blume could do with that tech, she had expected it to be a harder fight.

Pearce took the wheel of the 770S and took it to the street without any preamble. Mia kept her gun close, in case there was pursuit and she knew there'd be.

She didn't like how she'd been given a moment to calm down and process what was happening, sitting in the welcoming, soft leather of the expensive sports-car. It gave her time to realise what had just happened, made her remember the heat of the detonated lighthouse as it rolled over her, the hard, unforgiving beat of the boat as it crashed on the breakwater. It made her remember the subtle scent of fresh spilled blood mixing with the ozone of the thunderstorm. Her arm and shoulder remembered to ache under the recoil of her weapon. The more her heartbeat and breathing slowed down, the tighter her chest seemed to become at the realisation that this was far from over.

"Pearce…" she said and didn't know why and what she should follow it up with. He glanced at her and she could see a smirk in his face, slight and unpleasant, vanished as he focussed on the street again.

"Relax," he drawled the word, low rasp in his voice, something like mockery, but the sheer confidence it conveyed grounded her a little. "I got this."

She wanted to argue, but didn't really see the point, tried to concentrate on her surroundings again, get back into the battle-calm she'd lost in the respite.

It had been nearly ten years since she'd last been in Chicago, years in which technological advancement had radically altered the surface of the city, here so much more than in any other place in the world. Still, she recognised it, rushing past outside the window, some vague map coming alive in her mind, pinpointing her position in all of this. In Pearce's mind, this map would be sharp and flawless, she wouldn't be surprised if he'd foregone the augmentation on his Lens and navigated by his senses and experience alone.

Mia was braced for a car chase. But there wasn't one, not really.

Like a well-trained dog, Chicago seemed to follow even the smallest gesture of its master, anticipating what he wanted it to do in ways only modern technology could do. In the years since Blume had refined its ctOS and network and prediction algorithms, it hadn't been pushing Pearce out at all, it had allowed him to ingrain himself into the very core.

The artists would be tempted to call it magic, _techno_magic. Traffic lights changed ahead of them, allowing Pearce to drive at full speed. The cops had set up barricades, blocked off large swathes of the city so there weren't many other cars or pedestrians to worry about. In their effort to hem him in, the cops had opened the way for him. Boulders sprang up and closed the roads off whenever a police cruiser or Blume elite car tried to cut them off. Sirens howling impotently along the sidelines, reduced to unwilling spectators in a one-man show.

Heading for Brandon Docks, Pearce made a small detour, crossed the river twice and lost most of the pursuers as the bridges opened and closed for him.

Finally, crossing into the industrial zones, Mia really did relax a little, even though Pearce wasn't slowing down. They had left the police barricades behind long ago. No doubt their enemies were still casting about for them in the chaos Blume itself had caused when they blacked out the entire shoreline, in the thunderstorm which might or might not take down other parts of the grid, in the confusion caused by the explosion of the lighthouse and the eagerness of Blume and city authorities to get their cover story out to the public before people's recordings flooded the internet and its breeding ground for conspiracy theories.

The thunderstorm had calmed down by now, lightning was distant and the rumble of thunder had grown faint. Instead, a downpour had started, drenching the streets and hopefully keeping helicopters and drones on the ground.

Pearce took a sharp turn into a narrow side street and then slowed down, brought the car to an unexpected smooth halt. Mia realised she'd been drifting, still clutching her gun, but with Pearce's hacks all but clearing the way for them, she had almost forgotten she might still be having a job.

Frowning, she looked at him.

"Just a second," he said. He let the engine running as he got out of the car and hurried to the fence they had stopped in front of. He pulled up his collar against the rain.

The area beyond the fence was an abandoned train-yard, high, dry grass growing between old tracks, some abandoned wagons left to rust and a ramshackle looking, two-story hall ahead of them.

Mia watched as Pearce picked the padlock on the gate and pushed it open. He made eye contact with her and then waved at her. It took a moment for Mia to realise what he wanted, then she slipped into the driver's seat and drove the car through the gate. In the rear-view mirror, Mia watched with amusement as Pearce closed the gate and put the padlock back in place, probably one of the most old-school things he had done all year.

"Stay," he called as he walked back to the car and Mia was about to relinquish the driver's seat.

She did't get to drive very far, only into the warehouse, where they parked amid industrial debris and beside a scratched-up, forty years old muscle car.

"That was the plan?" Mia asked as she got out of the car. "Blow up the lighthouse, take them head-on and… I didn't know you could still do that with ctOS access. That system was supposed to become _harder_ to hack."

Pearce pushed a hand through his wet hair. He took off his jacket and shook out the wetness irritably.

He tilted his head a little at her. "Who said it's easy?" he asked.

"But that…" Mia insisted, realised she was gesturing back the way they'd come, but wasn't entirely sure if the direction even was correct. It didn't matter, she was pointing at the entirety of the city anyway. "Well, it was impressive," she finished, somewhat inadequately. "No wonder Blume's bringing out the big guns against you."

"It's not me," Pearce said, shaking his head. "Blume wants their new OS to be flawless. No hacks, no exploits, no backdoors, no access unless you pay for it. It's not me they're after. It's everyone. Getting me is just good marketing and getting Frewer is a bonus. The only they'd celebrate getting is T-Bone."

After what she'd just seen Pearce do to ctOS, Mia wasn't sure why Blume shouldn't be after him personally, but she couldn't figure out how to argue the point. She felt tired, she had barely slept and the adrenaline spike that had kept her going was quickly dropping into combat comedown, leaving her feeling drained. Pearce showed no such signs, gaze sharp and focussed and each move crisp and precise. No indication that the fight might have been taking a toll on him, she briefly caught herself staring at his knee, but realised she didn't even know which one was supposed to be damaged.

He slipped his jacket back on. "Come on, we've got to get out of Chicago before BCP and the cops regroup."

#

The radio chattered on with bad reception, Mia listened to the news as they tried to pierce together what had happened, just off the shore of downtown, but reliable reports still seemed to be sparse. Several hours had passed, dawn was creeping over the horizon and traffic started to fill the highway, but it was mostly going into the city while they were leaving it behind. Mia had expected a long list of casualties, but the news reported none. They said the lighthouse had been abandoned and deserted and they didn't even mention anything about a shootout on the Lakefront Trail. BCP must have cleaned up all along the shore. For some reason, it bothered her that she didn't know how many people had died, she glanced at Pearce, wondering if he had kept count, if she could ask him and receive an answer.

By the time they left the city limit, T-Bone called. The old muscle-car had no bluetooth speakers, so Pearce merely turned up the volume on his phone, giving Mia a chance to hear.

_"You got out all right?" _T-Bone asked.

"We're fine," Pearce said. He looked over Mia. "Not a scratch."

There was a pregnant pause on the other end, Ray huffed and then said, _"We're taking the scenic route, should be there tonight. Keep the barbecue going." _

"Sure," Pearce said. "Take care."

He hung up, rested his hand back on the steering wheel limply.

"Where are we going anyway?" Mia asked.

"Pawnee," Pearce said and managed to make it sound like a dirty word, even though he hadn't put any special emphasis on it. "We'll do some _camping." _

This time his misgiving was obvious.

"Not your favourite past-time, huh?"

Pearce snorted and shook his head. "No," he said and for a long time it seemed like he wasn't going to say anything else. He took a breath, then said, "There's a trailer park outside Pawnee, it used to be a lot of antigovernment people, dropouts, rednecks. The Pawnee Militia used to recruit there, but since they became Blume Corporate Police they aren't too welcome. Ever heard of Offliners?"

"Vaguely," Mia said. "Off-the-grid people, right?"

"Yeah… not just that. They're off the grid, yeah, but… well, they reject all modern tech. Give them a few more years and you've got cult on your hands, maybe even some kind of eco-terrorism."

"That's where we're going?"

"It's one of the few places Blume can't look. They are considered crazy, but mostly harmless. Government would have to crack down hard to break them up and that's not worth the possible fallout. We can hide there for a few days and it's close to Blume HQ."

Mia let this run through her mind a few times.

"I guess I'm not going to see Rose flying around there."

"No," Pearce agreed, but he cracked a small smile at the thought. "And it's best to keep your phone out of sight. On the upside, no one's gonna mind our guns."

It turned out, 'trailer park' didn't quite begin to describe the sprawling area occupied by trailers, shacks and tents and a handful of log cabins. It looked huge, crawling away from the highway, into the forests and up the rocky hills beyond Pawnee. The thunderstorm had rolled over it without doing it any favours, leaving behind what looked like a settlement out of some post-apocalyptic fantasy.

Flags were flying above many of the trailers, stars and stripes mostly, some confederate flags and the occasional defaced version of Blume and other tech companies.

Mia had been driving the last stretch, after they'd stopped at a supermarket to stock up on food and some other necessities and Pearce had actually been dozing in the passenger seat while the radio droned on without revealing any actual news.

The car rumbled along a muddy path between the rows of trailers, but the people living their only spared them a very brief look as they passed. Small lines of smoke climbed into the air from barbecues or camp fires, bigger bulks of smoke came from diesel generators. A group of teenagers were staging a race with their motorbikes, narrowly braked before they collided with them.

One of them shouted an insult after them, but that was the only aggressive reaction to their presence.

"The blue one," Pearce directed her, stretching out in his seat and yawning. The brief nap seemed to have fully rejuvenated him.

The blue trailer stood in an U-shape with two other, somewhat smaller trailers. An awning stood in front of the door at its side, its edges torn and uneven, knocked out of place by weather and general neglect.

With a paper-bag full of food and another bag with fresh clothes and toiletries, Mia followed Pearce into the trailer. It was surprisingly spacious, run-down but clean, if one discounted the thin layer of dust that had settled on every surface. A kitchenette spanned one wall, two benches faced a table on one end, a narrow couch was affixed to the wall facing the kitchenette, a cabinet hung low above it, made the couch somewhat less inviting.

Looking around, Mia spotted the bunk-bed at the other end of the trailer. She dropped the bags off on the dining table and stepped to the beds, gauging their size.

"So… are we sleeping in shifts?" she asked. "Because I don't know how I feel about potentially spooning with you."

She looked at Pearce, watched the frown on his face slowly dissipate and for a moment she was convinced he'd say something extremely dirty, but his expression settled and he only shrugged.

"The two others are ours, too," he said, gesturing vaguely towards the outside. "Pick your roommate."

Mia sighed, walked back to the bag and started digging through. "You know what? I don't care. I just want to take a shower and go to sleep."

"We passed the bathrooms on the way in," Pearce said. He picked a packet of Oreos from top of the groceries bag, pulled his head in so he didn't knock on the cabinet when he dropped on the couch. He tore open the packet.

"Great," Mia muttered, but she wasn't particularly surprised. "How long are we staying?"

She didn't expect the question to be a difficult one. Everything else had to been meticulously planned, up to and including a full-scale assault by Blume's private army, but Pearce was silent for a moment too long and his face was grim, despite the Oreo he'd just bitten into.

"Not long," he said evasively. "Go get some rest first."

#

Mia had been worried falling asleep would take some time, her mind reeling in the aftermath of everything that had happened. She wasn't too keen on reviewing the fight, the people who had died and whose death now seemed to be completely ignored by the public. The radio had been blaring in the bathrooms as well, but still the news was silent. The story so far was that lighthouse explosion was an accident and there wasn't even a peep on events on the shore. Running a coverup on that scale took some doing, even for a corporation the size of Blume. Without internet connection, Mia couldn't tell how much of the truth had seeped out online, but traditional media were certainly not reporting it.

It turned out, her body was tired enough that the hot water of the shower and the short, but cold walk back to the trailer took it out of her. The bunk bed she fell into was crisply clean, welcoming and she dropped asleep almost the moment her head hit the pillow.

When she woke up, it was late in the afternoon, a few thin rays of sunlight had managed to come through the clouds and cut across the room.

The sweet scent of a joint had climbed in through the open window as she got up and stretched. Through the window, she spotted an elderly woman sitting in a chair on top of her trailer, leisurely smoking a joint as the sunset fell on her face.

Mia's limbs were a little sore from the fight and the ungentle collision with the breakwater, but nothing she wouldn't shake off with a little exercise. She heard voices from outside, Pearce's deep rasp, but she didn't understand what he was saying.

Rubbing her eyes, she slipped into her boots and pulled a sweater on, then pushed the door open.

Pearce lounged in a folding chair under the awning, his legs up on an upturned crate and a bottle of beer in his hand. By his side was a table with a pack of paper plates, two six-packs of beer and a plastic bucket of potato salad. Just outside the awning, steaks were sizzling on the barbecue. Ray stood over them, but he'd turned away to gesture with the tongs at Pearce.

"That's bullshit," Ray snapped. "And you know it."

The homely atmosphere immediately drained away, even the smell of steak — and pot — wasn't going to bring it back.

"Ah, Mia," Pearce greeted her and Mia didn't really like how he'd latched on to her as a way to deflect whatever argument he was having with Ray.

"What's up?" she asked anyway.

"We're having a disagreement," Pearce said with thin mockery.

Mia found another chair leaned against the trailer, picked it up and unfolded it, sat down by the table.

"I think we should move on Blume immediately," Pearce said.

"And that's dangerously stupid," Ray said immediately. "All the people who came for us in the lighthouse? Where do you think they are now?"

"Some of them are dead," Pearce pointed out deadpan.

"And the others are crawling all over Tech Meadows!" Ray paused for a moment, turned away to pick one of the steaks up and turn it around. A little quieter, he added, "You mass-murdering them didn't even put a dent in their numbers, sorry for your ego."

"It's not a problem," Pearce said, unimpressed. "It's an advantage. The whole place is full of strangers who don't know their way around. The chain of command becomes unreliable, nobody knows what's going on and who's in charge. Now's the _best _time to move, _before_ they reorganise."

Ray didn't answer, pushed the tongs on the meat to test them.

"Who wants medium rare?" he asked, clearly trying to sound amiable, but his anger was still tangible.

"I'll take it," Mia said. She'd already shovelled potato onto a plate, she'd last eaten yesterday night, before going to bed and the Oreo she'd snatched from Pearce before falling asleep really didn't count. She pushed the potato aside to make room for the steak.

"Besides," Ray said as if the interruption hadn't happened. "We can't make a move without Wyland. Just contacting him will be risky. If Blume's watching him…"

"Now's the time when they're stretched thinnest," Pearce insisted. "I can get to Wyland, I'll get him to move things along."

Ray's mood darkened even more. "It blows up," he asserted. He spoke slowly, as if to an idiot, using the tongs to emphasis every single word. "You attack Blume HQ tomorrow we're all for the flies. I don't know why you don't see it."

Pearce regarded him in silence for a long minute, contemplating him. Slowly, he shook his head, "I'm sorry, I think I misunderstood something," he said. "Are you seriously waiting for when it's going to be _safe_ to move on Blume?"

The incredulity was nothing but pretence and mockery, uncompromisingly levelled at anyone who happened to attract his ire. Even casually relaxed in a folding chair, still with that bottle limply dangling in his lax fingers, Pearce looked like a predator, fixing his gaze on Ray without blinking.

"I'm waiting for when it won't be suicide," Ray insisted, clearly not daunted by the subtle threat Pearce was trying to weave. "And you should, too."

He turned back to the barbecue, dropped his voice and sounded almost bored. "The times when all you had to do was hit hard to get your way are over. You're an intelligent man, Aiden, start acting like it again."

Pearce laughed, entirely without humour, then took a sip from the beer.

"I'll take medium well," he said nonchalantly.

Already laboriously sawing at her meat with the plastic knife, Mia spotted Frewer appear from around the trailer. He held a box in his hand as he approached and set it down on the table, where Pearce picked it up. It looked like homemade cookies inside.

"From a neighbour," Frewer explained.

He looked around uncertainly, clearly picking up on the charged atmosphere.

"It's all set up," he said then. "We have power. We have internet, but…" he wagged his head from one side to the other. "Be careful. If the proxies fail. We. Every alarm will go off."

"Because no one here uses the internet?" Mia asked, chewing.

"Yes," Frewer nodded. "And. No ctOS access. Just regular internet."

"I can set up a meet with Wyland," Pearce said. Smirking a little, he put the box back on the table. "Better only have one of those," he remarked.

Mia looked up. "What's it with the pot in this place?"

"It grows reasonably well in the more protected parts," Pearce said. "Keeps this place afloat. Well, weed and guns and hired thugs. You can also buy and sell pretty much anything that's not high tech around here. No one's gonna ask where anything comes from."

"Or where it goes," Ray added ominously. "Frewer? Steak?"

"Only if it's dead," he said.

Ray shrugged, turned around and stepped to the table to pick up a plate, slapped a steak on it and handed it to Pearce silently. It took another moment before Ray spoke again.

He said, "Here's my compromise. You set up your meet with Wyland and see what he has to say." He looked at Mia and took a breath, clearly unhappy with what he was offering. "It's you and Mia going in, I get that. It's your call. All I'm saying is that we've come too far to botch it all now, because… you can't keep your feet still, Aiden."

"It's not impatience," Pearce stated and then repeated it. "I'm not impatient. I see an opportunity."

Ray frowned, took an audible breath, but said nothing, just watched Pearce. Some silent duel of willpower and for once, it was Pearce who relented.

"The guys at Blume, they'll be thinking like you do," Pearce explained. "Safety in numbers and all that shit. They'll think they got us by surprise in the lighthouse, that we're on the retreat. It's the exact right moment to go in the offensive."

Ray shook his head, but it was a more thoughtful gesture this time.

"Too many moving parts," he said quietly.

"Yeah," Pearce agreed. "For them, too, and our operation is a lot neater than theirs."

Ray didn't look convinced, but the lines on his forehead softened just a little as he considered what Pearce had said. He moved his head from side to side in indecision and doubt, calculating the possibilities and the moving parts he'd mentioned, trying to assess the chances.

"Meeting Wyland is a risk in itself," he pointed out. "Don't you have any little go-betweens left you can use?"

"Some," Pearce conceded. "But I want to meet face to face."

Ray narrowed his eyes at him, seemed to remember something else and turned back, slapped the last steak on the grill from where it had been sitting in its paper on the table. He turned the other steak over, tested it and grimaced.

"It's dead," he announced and Frewer dutifully picked up a plate and held it out to Ray.

"I see what you're doing," Ray said to Pearce as he put Frewer's steak on the plate and the other man withdrew to where he was seated on the steps of the trailer door.

"Really."

"Really," Ray said pointedly, but it was hard to say if he was angry or just resigned. He sighed, clenched his mouth into a tight line and said, "Your steak's getting cold."

#

_The Vigilante's ice-blue eyes are narrowed to dangerous slits, a frosty counterpoint to the glittering lights of the cityscape sprawling out around him, a gorgeous view offered by the penthouse rooftop he's standing on. The distant lights trace the sharp edge of a cheekbone and the thin, bleeding cut that trails a little blood down his face and into the dark stubble along his jaw. He's holding himself perfectly still, gaze fixed on the man pacing up and down in front of him. _

_Expensively and tastefully dressed, 'Red' Devine paces casually, entirely self-assured. He is the head of the Devine family, infamous leaders of the Chicago Club, the top-tier of organised crime in the US. His hair is no longer red and it's been a while since he's had to get his hands dirty, he has henchmen for that now. _

_He walks a few more steps to the body of a woman, trussed up and dropped on the floor, artfully arranged to show off her long legs and curved hips, even as she regains consciousness. _

_Devine says, "I am really very sorry to this."_

_He looks up at the Vigilante. "I think one of the history and the people will see the cause. My proposal is better." _

_"I'll never cheat my virtues," the Vigilante snarls, white teeth gleaming. _

_Devine laughs, "Do not deceive yourself. Whether you run, regardless of the number of the civilians to security, you can never stops the members of the same family. You will always be one of us-s-s…" _

The DVD skipped, stuttered, but then continued.

Huddled somewhat more familiarly close than was entirely comfortable on the couch in the trailer, Mia took a handful of popcorn and chewed down on it.

"You were right," she said. "It's better with subtitles. But also somehow worse. I didn't even know it was out yet."

"It's not," Frewer said. "That's why we have the subtitles. The way they are. Yes."

On the screen, the blue-eyed Vigilante was listening indignantly to the crime boss's speech which would, inevitably, culminate in him threatening to kill the woman.

"I don't know about you, but I find this really weird," Mia said. "I read about this guy," she pointed at the screen with a hand full of popcorn. "And his dirty little porn history."

"You shouldn't believe everything you read," Aiden remarked from the Mia's right side. "They should've tried consulting with me."

"So it's not real? I can find this guy hot again?"

"Well," he said slowly. "Everyone has dirty secrets. Some dirtier than others. But it's not all bad. I like the part where I'm having a threesome with the hard-nosed lady cop and the idealistic hacktivist."

He titled his head towards T-Bone. "Better than what I got in real life."

"And they all survive, too," T-Bone remarked acidly. "But that's Hollywood for ya. No realism."

On the screen, Devine had his henchmen punch the Vigilante in his flawlessly chiselled features, then proceeded to threaten to kill the woman by throwing her over the side of the building.

_A slow smirk spreads across the Vigilante's face, blood dripping down the side from his split eyebrow, making him appear even more fierce. The henchman who has just punched him takes an instinctive step away from him. _

_The Vigilante says, "You think you can control city?"_

_Devine looks at him, realisation dawning in him, but slowly as the music builds up the tension. _

_"Looking around you!" Devine makes a sweeping gesture. "What do you seeing?"_

_Undeterred, the Vigilante tilts his head and says, "Do you think you can control I?"_

* * *

_End of _Gunmetal Sky: Widow's Walk_


	68. Gunmetal Sky: Springtime

**Recap: **In _Firewalker, _Marcus makes a passing mention of Jacks' planning to open a restaurant with a friend. Deliah appears in Quaint Old World as Jacks' girlfriend/wife. Aiden shot a little snuff flick in _The Dark End of the Street. Night of the Fox _is a Hollywood film adaption of some of the vigilante's exploits.

* * *

[summary: the seasons in the sun are gone]

**_Gunmetal Sky: Springtime**

* * *

In the calm after the morning rush, Edwin Simmons, chef and owner of Le Café Viennese, swiped surplus flour from the counter. Soft sunlight cut golden streaks across the room and he was hoping the weather would hold today. For the last few days, he and his staff had been constantly on edge, in case another thunderstorm rolled over them, washed away the relaxed spring atmosphere and send his guests scrambling to get inside from the seating area along the river.

"I'm telling you!"

He glanced up. Through the open door of the kitchen, he spotted his staff, students Seth and Marcella, hanging around the sliding door, conspiratorially positioned to make wall and curtains hide them from view from outside. He frowned, give the counter another swipe, then dropped the towel to stride out to see what was going on, glad there were only few guests seated inside at the moment and all of them seemed occupied with their own conversation or phones.

"Nah," Marcella said. "I thought he'd be older."

"He is _older," _Seth insisted. "Just… I saw him when I took his order, right? And he's old. Like older than my Dad."

Marcella pulled a skeptical grimace. "Yeah, but… but old means… like… more beige."

"Are you serious?" Seth exclaimed. "Beige? That's your whole point?"

She shrugged, shook her head. "It's a state of mind. He just doesn't look like I thought the vigilante would look."

They both jostled guiltily when Simmons got close enough and peered past Seth through the window at the man they were obviously debating. He was seated with his body angled away from the building, face towards the sun. A denim jacket and motorcycle helmet was on the chair by his side and a laptop was open in front of him.

"Should we call the cops?" Seth asked and his expression was slightly miserable, unhappy that his boss had happened upon the situation, but unable to suppress the question.

"What's wrong?" Simmons asked.

"Seth thinks that guy's the vigilante," Marcella explained. "But I think he's just seeing things."

Seth shot her an annoyed look. "I looked at his face!" he insisted. "Everyone know his face, it's everywhere and…"

Marcella reached across to him and nudged him teasingly. "Admit it, when _Night of the Fox _came out you got really interested in him."

"Hey, I had to write a paper on it, it's not my fault."

"You had to write a paper on a dumb blockbuster movie?"

"_No, _fuck you," Seth said annoyed. "I had to write a paper on the morality of adapting real-life crimes and criminals to the screen in light of how that'd glorify illegal actions and encourage people to do the same."

"Language, Seth," Simmons admonished, but his heart wasn't really in it. He was studying the man the two had been discussing. As Simmons watched, the man turned his face away from the sun and towards the laptop, making the profile of his face visible. He wore a pair of reflective aviators, hiding his eyes from view, his short cropped hair seemed dark from the distance, perhaps some grey there, catching the light as he moved.

"Wasn't he a computer guy?" Simmons asked. "That laptop is at least ten years old. I had a model just like that."

"Well, he's obviously trying to be incognito," Seth insisted, slowly turning a little petulant in the face of his colleagues' lack of faith. He hesitated, looked away from maybe-the-vigilante and at his boss.

"Shouldn't we call the cops?" he asked again.

Simmons gave it some thought. He couldn't say he had an opinion on the man's identity. He'd seen some news pieces and pictures of the vigilante, of course, same as everyone else, but he was hard pressed to remember many details beyond the most commonplace facts: white male mid-thirties? But that was years ago, so he must be in his forties or fifties now. Could be, Simmons supposed. Could be _not_. On reflex, he glanced up at the cameras keeping watch over the Riverwalk, then looked up and down along the promenade, uneasily making sure nothing was out of place.

"No," he decided eventually. "If that's just some guy trying to relax, I don't want my name in the news because the cops harassed him. And if it's the vigilante, he's not doing anything, probably took the day off to enjoy the weather. Just let him be."

He paused pointedly and added, "By the by, he's obviously still waiting for his order. Maybe get that done, I don't pay you for gossiping."

The two took the hint, bustled into motion instantly. Marcella resumed her work of collecting dirty dishes on a tray and Seth hurried behind the bar counter to the coffee maker.

* * *

With the double espresso balanced on the tray, Seth made his way across to the vigilante and tried his hardest to appear as if he didn't walk a small half-circle to steal a look at what was on the man's laptop. He caught a glimpse of a short-haired blonde from an odd angle, she moved out of frame and the vigilante shifted in his seat, startled Seth who hadn't realised how close he'd come.

Seth smiled awkwardly, silently praying for the vigilante not to take offence. Up close again, Seth was even more convinced he'd been right all along, but also… less convinced. He knew it didn't make much sense and he certainly didn't plan to confide with Marcella. The man _looked _the part, not his clothes, which were casual and unassuming, a faded Blackhawks T-shirt and worn boots. His behaviour was non-threatening in every way, polite, but reserved. Nothing special about him, really, just some guy having a coffee while he caught up with his favourite drama show or something.

Right?

Seth remembered where he was, managed to go through the motions of lowering the tray and putting the espresso cup down on muscle memory alone. He remembered not to stare.

He smiled, he hoped it didn't look as shaky as it felt.

"Can I get you anything else?" he asked.

He could tell the vigilante was about to dismiss him, but he looked around the table and said, "Sugar, please."

The thing about his voice, Seth thought as if he was actually planning to lay it all out for someone later, no one really knew what his voice sounded like. They had and incomprehensible amount of pictures and videos of him, however blurry or tampered with they might be. But the only reliable source of his voice, near as Seth could tell, was that awful snuff movie from years ago, which had a bad habit of resurfacing on the internet and remained one of the most popular searches in connection with the vigilante. Seth would swear every oath on the planet it was the same face — give or take a few unkind years — but he'd swear that oath it was the same _voice, _too.

Now all he needed to do was figure out how to get the idea across to Marcella and Simmons without seeming like one of these embarrassing vigilante apologists that tended to litter the comments section accompanying that terrible video.

"Uh, sure," Seth said, hurried away and picked up the sugar dispenser from an unoccupied table. As he turned back around, the vigilante had settled back in his chair, angled his face into the sun again and pushed the lid of the laptop down a fraction. The direction of his gaze was hidden by the shades, he could be looking anywhere, even directly at Seth, who felt caught and exposed.

Having no other option, he carried the sugar back and said, "There you go, sir."

"Thanks," the vigilante said, straightened a little and picked up the sugar, dumped a generous amount into his coffee. Thusly dismissed, Seth hovered in indecision for a heartbeat longer, than flittered away and back inside, swinging around to stand by the curtained window.

"You're right," Marcella said and held her phone in front of his face. It was too close and for a moment he saw nothing but a blurry shape. He snatched the phone from her hand to look down on it.

"It's him," Marcella said. "What do you think he's doing?"

"Having coffee?" Seth offered. "And watching some video of a blond woman."

"Like a movie?" she asked, thought about it and added. "Or, oh my god!… Porn?"

"No! Who watches porn in public?" he inquired. "It was just her face, anyway. I saw it only for a second."

They were silent for a moment, watching as the vigilante took a sip from the coffee, pushed the lid of the laptop open again and resumed whatever he'd been doing.

"Do you think…" Marcella whispered. "Do you think he's, you know, looking for someone?"

"Like someone he's… uh, hunting?" Seth asked back, matched her hushed tone without realising it. "I don't know."

They stood, badly hidden behind the doorway and the curtain as the vigilante did nothing more spectacular than drink coffee and stare at a laptop screen, sometimes he'd pause, or shift in his seat. After a little while, he briefly lowered his shades to slide the Lenses in his eyes, than put the shades back on.

"I mean…" Marcella said. "He has really nice arms. For an old guy."

"Yeah," Seth said noncommittally, hoped she'd pass over the fact that comparing the vigilante's arms with — to use a completely random example — _his, _he wouldn't like the result. Old guy or not. Lightly, he said, "But he's got to, right?"

"You read up on this guy," Marcella said. "What's he like?"

"Uh," was the best Seth could come up spontaneously. In his mind, he recounted some of the things he'd read in his research and tried to remember what conclusion he'd drawn about it all back then. "Not someone anyone would want to mess with."

Silence fell again for a time. The vigilante emptied his cup and pushed it aside. He settled his hand on the phone, moved the tips of his fingers over the sensitive screen.

"It's kinda cool, though," Marcella concluded quietly.

"What?" Seth shot her a look.

"Not _everything_, obviously, but…" she started, frowned and rolled her eyes at him. "Come on, you know what I mean."

Seth tried a disapproving expression, knew it was phoney and finally just nodded. "I didn't put that in my paper, though."

The vigilante reached into his pocket and his small audience held its breath and released it with slightly disappointed relief when he hadn't pulled a gun, but what appeared to be a flash drive. He plucked it into the laptop, held it there for a second, then pulled it out again and slapped the lid closed.

"You know, I actually haven't seen the movie," Marcella remarked. "Is it any good?"

"It's very… badass," Seth said. "But I couldn't find a lot of facts that match up."

"Hey, uh, I think I want to go see it. You want to tag along? My treat."

"Yeah, I'd like to. For science," he said, chuckled a little.

The vigilante pushed his chair back and got up, slung his jacket over his arm.

"What do we do if he dines and dashes?" Marcella asked.

Seth didn't know how to answer that. He just held his breath as the vigilante picked up his helmet and reached for his phone with the other. He looked up and glanced around, his gaze lingering for a moment on the entrance of the café, Seth and Marcella froze in place. His gaze wandered away from them and he swiped his finger over the phone. In Seth's left Lens, the payment confirmation appeared, a small list of the double espresso and a generous tip.

Seth exhaled and Marcella subconsciously picked up on it and relaxed a little.

The vigilante strode away without a backward glance, heading towards the nearest steps leading back to street level. Just before he was out of sight, Seth and Marcella watched as he dumped the laptop in a litter bin as he walked by.

Barely five minutes later, a woman in a Corporate Police uniform came down the same steps he'd just taken. She stopped for a moment, then went to the bin and retrieved the laptop.

* * *

Nicky hummed appreciatively to herself as the scent of fresh-baked cake and coffee drifted into the small sunroom office. The house was a marvel, a true jewel, small and hidden enough it turned out to be surprisingly affordable. In the peace and quiet of the sunroom, surrounded by the small, lush garden she did her best work. Though it barely felt like work at all.

"Hey, Mom," Jacks stuck his head in and gave her a quick grin. "Do you want to try our new cake?"

Chuckling, she said, "What weird ingredient have you been trying this time?"

Still grinning, Jacks said, "Zucchini."

Arching her brows, Nicky passed a glance over the screen in front of her, giving her work a quick review before she decided she was due a break anyway and she wouldn't be able to focus with that delicious smell in the air.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," she said, mouth already watering.

The doorbell rang and she heard Weston yell _"I'll get it!"_ before she or Jacks could react. Weston had been their neighbour's kid, a stroke of luck Nicky thought they'd thoroughly deserved.

Weston's mother, overworked, but pragmatic and with a big heart, had taken both Nicky and Jacks under her wing. She'd intuitively known not to press Nicky for details, she never asked about Chicago and why Nicky had left it the way she had. She never _asked_, but at the same time, she was always willing to listen. Without pressure, Nicky could dissect her thoughts and feelings at her own pace and on her own terms, it helped immensely.

As the years passed, Nicky sometimes wondered if she didn't own her the full story, but as the scars slowly faded, it didn't seem so important anymore.

Weston and Jacks had almost instantly befriended each other, though wildly different in temperament they had somehow found some common ground quickly. It had helped Jackson heal and because it helped Jacks, it helped her. She hadn't even noticed the moment when things were no longer this unreliable, tangled web of badly understood threats. At some point, the pain was gone and all she had to deal with was the mere _memory _of pain.

It still flared up from time to time, she saw it in Jacks, too, when he remembered and got very quiet from one moment to the next, but it was nothing that had the power to stop either of them.

Deliah wrapped her arms around Jacks from behind, hugged him close then gave him a little push so he cleared the way.

"Hello, Mrs. Pearce!" Deliah greeted her, then looked back at Jacks. "What's it today? Chocolate avocado?"

"Just zucchini."

Weston appeared behind them, wearing an apron and oven mitts. "Ready?" he asked.

Nicky smiled, snapped the laptop she'd been working on closed and got up, followed them into the living room where Jacks, like the restaurant owner he was, had already prepared everything.

Nicky let herself drop into a comfortable armchair. Jacks and Weston served their experimental cake to the women, then joined them. Weston in the second armchair and Jacks and Deliah on the sofa, happy in the gentle sunlight.

* * *

_End of _Gunmetal Sky: Springtime_

* * *

**Obscure _Reference_: **I picked the title of _"Springtime"_ as a reference to Jacques Brel's _"Le Moribond"_ — to the English speaker probably more familiar as _"Seasons in the Sun"_ by Terry Jacks — due to the dichotomy of spring and death. While in Brilliancy, it's already clear that Aiden survives (because of the chronology issues from hell), Aiden himself does not know and he acts accordingly. That associative chain might be a bit long… (and Gunmetal Sky takes place in spring so it can even be considered redundant…)

**Author's Note: **I got a minor thing about linguistics, it's like a reflex. So in correct French it should be "Le Café _Viennois", _but I americanised it for authenticity.


	69. Gunmetal Sky - Part 1

**Author's Note: **I wanted to hold off posting this until I'm reasonably sure part 2 won't take too long, but dealing with RL crap has whittled away my impulse control. It shouldn't be too long, though.

**Holy shit, **the English language needs to figure out if it's taze/tase/to taser/to tazer.

**About Josh:** As you may recall, the oc "Derek Wyland" was originally called "Josh" and I changed it because Ubi revealed a canon character by that name. Now it occurs to me canon!Josh could easily fill this role. Depending on the actual events in WD 2, I might use him, Derek was just Josh's false identity all along… **Unrelated **to that, I've looked at this Josh guy a little more closely and I really hope the idea that he might be Jacks is just paranoia brought on by the T-Bone reveal. (Josh seems too old, but otherwise, his attitude and even his looks are… worrying.)

* * *

[summary: "but man is not made for defeat…"]

[takes place may 2026]

**_Gunmetal Sky – Part 1**

* * *

Mia hiked silently behind Pearce on the narrow trail through the woods. They'd been going for a good hour, though as a city kid, Mia had quickly lost most of her sense of direction and time in the thicket of lush green shrubbery and tall, dark trees. Sharp-angled rocks sometimes struck out from the thicket, landmarks for her gaze to linger on, but it was all hard to differentiate.

T-Bone had dropped them off some two miles away from Tech Meadows and the trail wound through the forest without branching off. She assumed Pearce, just as city-born and bred as she was, would just about manage not to get lost. Besides, this close to Blume HQ, phone reception was stellar and as long as they used only their regular phones, Blume had no way of thinking they were anything but normal people getting in touch with nature while geocaching.

_Are you sure? _Mia wanted to ask. Desperately. _Are you sure it'll work? Are you sure Dave did his part? Are you sure we should go in so early? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure?_

The reason she bit down on her lower lip instead of actually saying it aloud was because she might as well ask Pearce to lie to her face. The tense energy coming off his seemingly relaxed body was bad enough. His steely silence was another indicator of his state of mind, but the trail was too narrow to walk side by side so unless he looked back or the trail turned a sharp enough corner, she had no idea what his face might reveal.

Underneath their normal clothes, they wore a suit of bulletproof meta-material, 3D-printed to flawlessly fit their bodies. It'd block bullets and taser projectiles and offered some minor protection against any bladed weapon. It was also just the wrong side of stifling, a thin layer of sweat trying to form underneath the skin-tight suit.

The trail took a sharp left turn and vanished back into the trees, seemed almost to double back on itself a little further in, but Pearce stopped and looked the shrubs on the side of the path up and down. When he said nothing, Mia opened her own GPS app and checked their location. They'd have to go straight through the woods for another quarter mile until they reached the back wall of Tech Meadows.

Uncertainly, Mia glanced up at the patch of sky visible above. It wasn't noon-day bright, but evening was still a long way off and it would be some time to sundown when they'd get where they wanted to go.

The timing was this Dave's, too. He didn't want to break from his routines and tip some prediction software off.

"Are you… ? Uh…" she said.

Pearce had been about to step forward, gloved hands already raised to part the bushes, but he stopped and looked back at her.

"Question?" he asked.

She went through the game-plan in her mind, one carefully outlined step after the other, making it all sound suspiciously simple, easiest heist in the history of crime. A _nothing can go wrong _type of situation.

Both Tobias and Ray were proud of their assembled arsenal. An EMP gun, based on the drones' design that delivered tiny projectiles and affected only a small radius. Just enough to introduce a minor error in the complex circuits Blume was using, creating small blind spot for them to slip past the surveillance on the lower floors of Tech Meadows.

Thirty second windows, Wyland had confirmed that errors of that duration wouldn't raise an alarm straightaway, but Blume was running a monitoring software on top of their systems, looking for a pattern in outages or errors. How often was going to be _too _often was anyone's guess.

Wyland had also confirmed that Blume had had to roll back to using Profiler's old facial recognition software, rather than their own, considerably more sophisticated ID'ing system because the large number of new faces on the site had caused problems.

Pearce was silently, but visibly, pleased about this, though, as T-Bone was quick to point out, Pearce hadn't known that when he'd pushed his schedule through.

With Profiler still in the game, they could show their faces openly, probably could've walked in through the front gate if Pearce had had the time to social engineer them a few visitor passes. Blume used to host any number of tours, getting in that way might have been easy. It would, however, have put them on some monitoring radar. Too many people and systems would've known they were there and someone might have looked too closely at Pearce.

Mia adjusted the strap of her backpack.

"No," she lied and took a breath because her throat had gone too tight. Pearce didn't take his gaze away, dug it through her eyes and into her head, weighing every strained fibre of her being. He didn't ask if she wanted out. She had committed, letting her off the hook now wasn't in his interest.

Squirming away from his penetrating assessment, she swallowed dryly and started walking, pushing through the bushes.

"Let's go."

She felt his gaze dig into the back of her head for another moment, before she heard the rustle of leaves and breaking twigs as he followed.

Tech Meadows was Blume's shining new flagship. It was rapidly growing to be not just a collection of office buildings and computer research labs with an oversized server farm underneath. It was meant to grow into it's own little village, with on-site apartments and shops from the generations' best and brightest. Planet Blume, free of any noteworthy government oversight. It looked pretty enough, unthreatening. Sweeping white architecture borrowed from every optimistic utopia ever conceived, lush green park with fountains and café. All of it, powered by clean, renewable energy. Even all the money that was pouring in, Blume made sure enough of it was spent on the environment and social equality programmes. They were recruiting not only college students with the best marks, but they were looking for the raw talent down in the poorest communities of the Wards, too. In a time when an entire generation had grown up within the ever-cresting waves of financial instability and political instability, Blume was a beacon of the American Dream.

You couldn't blame people for latching onto it all. In a way, Mia supposed, it was just easier to take Blume at face value, take their free services for granted and be glad that one thing in their lives was actually sorted in a satisfactory way.

The glamour of DedSec and Blume whistleblowers never outlasted what Blume was creating, even Chicago's penchant for larger-than-life criminals was only good for second-rate films, but the majority was behind Blume.

If Pearce hadn't found her, if she hadn't looked behind the curtain through his eyes, Mia guessed she'd be one of them. She'd never been one for a crusade, never quite the guts to go to the dark side, either. The people in the street, they didn't understand what Pearce was doing.

She wasn't sure she understood what he was doing even so.

"Pearce, can I ask something?"

She slowed down and he caught up with her, stepped a little closer in the thicket.

"Sure," he said.

"Have you thought of not doing this?"

She hadn't quite expected him to take her question completely seriously. It seemed rather late to ask it, but perhaps he thought she'd earned the right to, or perhaps the walk in the woods had given him more time to think than he'd wanted, just like her.

"I didn't want do this," Pearce said. "It's all T-Bone."

Mia frowned. Pearce had been pushing this plan forward from all the time since he'd brought her in, it seemed to have been his gig from the start and much of the planning bore his handiwork. He'd fight this hard about something he didn't even want?

"What do you mean?"

He took a long time before he answered.

"You read about the fire in Millennium Point?"

"Of course," she said. She'd wondered if it had anything to do with him, but she'd wondered this about almost every spectacular or disastrous thing in Chicago since she'd left.

"It was…" he stopped abruptly and his voice was a little quieter as he continued. "It made a few things very clear."

He looked at her and said, "T-Bone thinks we have a chance. I don't."

It occurred to her that an Aiden Pearce who told the unabridged truth was its very own definition of frightening.

"But…"

A smile ghosted across his features, so faint it had to be authentic.

"Don't worry," he assured her. "I'm you're not dying today."

"Well," she said a little helplessly. "That's good to hear, because I have plans for next week."

She lacked the guts to push him for more details, perhaps it was better to pretend she hadn't seen the desperation in all of the men she worked with. Better to pretend it hadn't crossed her mind how her chances of survival weren't all that good. You took jobs, as a hacker before, as Pearce's protege, as a bounty hunter, there was always a _risk. _She had ways to handle it, usually by not looking at it too closely until she was safely home and toasting her partners.

A yard of trimmed grass led up to the outer wall surrounding Tech Meadows. The wall itself was some nine feet high, smooth pale stone or concrete — or possibly something with a less mundane name — bent slightly outward and topped by a sweeping wire mesh which looked decorative on first look. It became foreboding the very moment you contemplated climbing over it.

Blume had all the tech to make their headquarters impenetrable, but because there were people constantly on-site, some working their own, self-set hours or even living there, many conventional security measures weren't viable. Heat, sound and motion sensors wouldn't work for the public perimeters of the place. Instead, Blume relied on ID'ing everyone who entered their grounds by facial recognition. They were also able to track unique features such as height and gait, once the system was fed enough data, an intermediary step before trans-material scanning of facial features became reliable.

Pearce looked up and down the length of the wall.

"It's higher than I thought," she said. "Thirty seconds is cutting it tight."

"Shoot the rope: five seconds," Pearce said as he set his backpack down and unzipped it. "Climb up: ten. Cross the wire: five. Jump down: two. You've got eight seconds to spare."

She eyed him critically. They'd trained it in an abandoned train-yard in Pawnee. She still wasn't sure if Pearce's greater strength was actually offset by him having to lug more weight around, seeing as most of that weight seemed to be muscle and willpower. It had been years since she'd ran with him, but for some reason, the best she could do was _still_ just to keep pace.

Privately, she suspected keeping at that physical peak took a tremendous toll on Pearce, but she didn't know what could be gained if she forced him to talk about it or admit some weakness or other. He wasn't going to slow down, if anything, it'd just make him more resentful.

They had considered doing a test run to see what the response was to a breach, but they had decided against it. A self-improving software was beaten easiest by giving it no chance to learn from exposure to the same situation. This counted for people as well as for Blume's swarm of security drones.

They were in a remote area of Tech Meadows. Blume was building an indoor swimming pool just beyond the wall, but it wasn't completed. Wyland had said construction had been halted due to a disagreement between the architect and Blume, so it was unlikely people were around, at the same time the building and it's construction scaffolding blocked observation by both people and stationary cameras.

Mia hefted the line gun and eyed the wires above, hoped the mesh was at least slightly magnetic. The lock would engage either way, but it'd slip into place quicker and easier.

Just far enough away that they wouldn't hinder each other, Pearce got ready, too. He sent a text to T-Bone, confirming they were in place. While there was no reason why Blume would be suspicious about texts or phone calls from their headquarter, they were quite capable to monitor and track it, which was why they had decided to keep communication to a minimum. Once they were inside, T-Bone wouldn't be able to help them anyway.

"Ready?"

A tiny, contrary voice at the back of Mia's head grumbled a 'no', but she forced it down, confirmed, "Ready." and was glad her voice sounded even enough.

Pearce said nothing more, hefted the line gun in one hand and the EMP gun in the other. He shot the EMP projectiles at the wall, where they stuck and knocked out the networked sensors on that part of the wall.

Mia had shot the line up at the fence above, waited for the click as it locked. She pulled herself up. She didn't have a counter on her HUD, it'd just distract her. Halfway up, her arms started to burn, but she hauled herself all the way, gripped the wire mesh and swung over it without even bothering to check what she was dropping into.

Thankfully, it turned out to be lawn. She rolled back to her feet without, a little harder and more awkward than she'd have liked, the bulk of her backpack throwing her off. She hopped a few more steps forward to get a little further away from the wall, in case her close proximity caused an alarm to fire when the sensors came back on.

Pearce had landed almost at the same time and stood up straight by her side, faced the wall and as Mia regarded him, absent-mindedly shook out his left arm, flexing his fingers.

Following the direction of his gaze, Mia saw that the rope had detached itself automatically the way the tiny chip in the lock mechanism had been programmed to do.

"Well," Mia said and couldn't think of anything to follow it up with.

Pearce arched his brows at her, his breathing already evening out. Without saying anything, he turned and strode towards the unfinished building.

A man sat on a tightly-packed pallet and smoked a cigarette. He was in shadow and the sun was slowly dipping too low for any glare, he wore a pair of fashionable sunglasses, though they did little to make him look like anything other than some corporate drone. He looked out of place among Blume's young and hip crowd, too.

As they got closer, the corners of his mouth dipped downward in a grimace and he slipped from his seat, picked up a black sheet from his side.

"We don't have time," he said roughly. At first, Mia thought he was afraid, but while his movement was quick, it wasn't unsteady and the displeasure in his face, she realised, went far deeper than his expression.

With the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, he used both hands to pull the adhesive foil from the sheet, reach up and smooth it over Pearce's shoulder without asking first.

Mia got no greeting, either, just the slap of the foil to her shoulder. It caught the light when she moved, something not quite a QR code.

"I couldn't get your information into the system," Wyland said, facing Pearce. "Trying to output with anything _other _than a Red Alert with your biometric data is just stupid."

He looked at Mia. "Maybe with you, but this'll work."

He crunched the sheet in his hand, took a deep drag from the cigarette and pressed the glowing end into the paper until it started smouldering in his hand.

"Some people just keep throwing errors with RealMe, that's our own little Profiler, just more intrusive. We don't know what the problem is yet," Wyland explained. "So people get tagged like this."

The fire gained strength, a tongue liking up high in front of his face and Wyland dropped it.

He looked at Pearce again. "I can confirm your virus is in the drone network and the surveillance. I don't know how long it's going to stay hidden, but up until then, you should only be an error message for RealMe."

Wyland poked the ball of paper with the tip of his shoe, ash flaked off.

He spread out his arms. "Well, that's it," he said and dropped his arms as if he'd ran abruptly out of energy to keep them up. He managed a shrug. "Oh yeah, by the way, you're both interns. That gives you access to level two, best I could do. Caretakers could go down to five, but they don't have a large turnover, two new ones would be a big deviation."

Mia knew Wyland had been DedSec, one of the Council of Daves, who somehow had managed to survive the darknet purge Blume had enacted in the wake of the terror attack on Millennium Point. No doubt there were more survivors hiding out somewhere. If they had any sense, they'd thrown away all their smart devices and computers.

"Thanks," Pearce said. "When we get it, I'll drop you a free copy."

Wyland chuckled, a low, gargling sound without any humour whatsoever. "If, Mr. Vigilante. I'm pretty sure you mean 'if'."

Mia found Wyland's casual nihilism aggravating and hard to take. She realised she'd been shifting her weight from one foot to the other, looked like she needed to take piss, but it was just nerves. Standing around like this, exposed and with only a false identity, thin like the foil. She had had no control over what Wyland had set up and plastered on her shoulder, she'd not have any input at all. She didn't even know if Wyland had bothered with an actual identity, or if he'd just used two random names which would stand up to a background check for all of two seconds.

She wanted to keep going. Moving targets were harder to hit.

If Pearce felt anything like her, he certainly didn't show it. Holding himself still, his gaze rested on Wyland as if he might be able to read his mind if he stared hard enough, but there was nothing particularly menacing about it. Pearce was merely contemplating the other man and doing so not without sympathy.

"I wrote my will last night," Wyland added and laughed again. "I hope you did, too."

His sick smile passed over Mia.

Pearce chuckled, "I got nothing to give," he said mildly.

"Good on you," Wyland said and found some reservoir of energy to push himself into motion. His cigarette had burned to a stump and stubbed it out against a pristine steel pillar of the unfinished structure behind them, then tossed it a away into the rubble of the building site.

"I'll hold up my end," he said. "For as long as I can."

He waved listlessly with one arm, gave his sunglasses a little shove upwards on his nose and tucked his hands into his pockets as he turned and strode away.

"What did he mean?" Mia asked.

"He's our first line of defence," Pearce explained. He started walking in the other direction..

"We can't hack anything remotely," Pearce continued. "Someone on the inside has to do it. That's him. And it means he'll go down first."

"He's agreed?"

"He's DedSec," Pearce said and for a long minute, it seemed like he considered this explanation sufficient and wouldn't say anything else, but then he added, "It's his last shot at Blume."

"Like yours," Mia observed, knew she was prodding him a little, because of the conversation they'd had during the hike.

"Pretty much," Pearce agreed, as if it wasn't a big deal.

Mia looked back to where Wyland had vanished from sight, guessing she'd been wrong about him. It wasn't his _lack _of passion that'd made him appear so blasé, it must be the opposite.

Up close, Tech Meadows was even more spectacular than their skyline had been, nestled between the natural hills and valleys of the landscape with a few high-rises towering above the highest peaks. Most of the central buildings weren't this tall, however, only three to five stories, sprawling on the ground in organically smooth shapes, sweeping roofs and open glass fronts.

Back where Pearce and Mia had made their entrance, Tech Meadows was rather less megalomaniacal. The swimming pool was just one construction site of several and the building activity had torn open the ground and ruined the lawn, bare walls didn't reflect the light and the delicate columns were still wrapped in plastic foil, surrounded by the occasional pile of trash or debris. Some of the buildings were fairly old, hastily erected without aesthetic considerations and dirtied in the years since.

Mia had braced herself for meeting people and there were enough of them around to make her glad she had, trailing after Pearce as he made a beeline for what looked like a run-of-the-mill office building with a small, paved plaza in front, where small groups of people were standing around. Mia spotted a handful of BCP uniforms among them, but they weren't looking agitated and there weren't that many of them. Most of the security would be automated, maybe monitored by some people behind screens somewhere else, but even trained, it took a lot of concentration to spot details among the bustle of comings and goings. Especially, as Pearce had pointed out, many strange faces were on the grounds currently, making it harder to notice oddities.

Like, Mia thought wryly, the middle-aged intern making his way like a shark through water and the young woman looking around like a tourist, in a plaid shirt and a backpack hung from one shoulder.

A small sign on the outside of the building said 'Virtual Realty Development Dept.'

The inside had been recently renovated and Mia spotted the small bulbs on the ceiling, where the drones nestled. They functioned as stationary cameras, but were able to detach themselves and investigate anything that triggered their programming. She counted four of them in the lobby and in intervals in the hallways.

Pearce walked past the elevators and pushed through a set of double doors, then strode down another hallway. Fewer people were about and when Pearce finally stopped in front of another elevator, the area seemed empty, though not deserted, people working in offices not far away.

While they waited for the elevator, Pearce looked her over and softened his expression, a little less grim, a little less viciously entertained.

"You're doing fine," he said.

Mia had to grin, "Oh shit, do I look _this _anxious?"

The elevator arrived and they got in, the doors slid closed silently. The elevator was spacious, but it had a drone sitting right above them, watching them silently.

"You look like someone who's starting to realise what they've signed up for," Pearce said.

A slight pull, travelling from her stomach to her throat as the elevator kicked into motion. She looked back at Pearce, leaning his shoulder into the wall by the display. The artificial light tracked the lines in his face as he moved his head.

"I can't promise you…" he started, stopped to think for a moment, then continued. "… any specific outcome."

"Well, you don't have to," Mia said, trying for levity in her tone and a casual shrug. "You just have to pay me later."

It fell perfectly flat.

"Dave is going down," Pearce said. "I owe him nothing and I couldn't help him anyway. But… if this goes south and we have to beat it out of here, we'll have to split up."

Mia opened her mouth in some kind of denial, not quite sure in that first instant what he was even saying. Then it clicked through, of course. He was offering to draw the heat, the bigger target by far of the two of them, the one more likely to blow their cover. Mia was a nobody, even if her fake ID failed, she was _still _just a nobody. Some drone would come and tase her, someone would question her and maybe charge her, it'd be uncomfortable and expensive and she'd almost certainly do time. Give or take an over-nervous BCP rookie with a twitchy trigger finger, of course. But she stood a reasonable chance to survive, while Pearce would probably be summarily executed on the spot.

The elevator braked gently and stopped, the doors slid open and the drone hadn't moved.

"You don't have to sacrifice anything for me," Mia said, another half-hearted attempt to make it sound like she was joking.

She caught him nodding to himself, just from the corner of her eyes as she stepped out of the elevator. As he followed her out, he laughed.

"What makes you think that?" he inquired. "You'd just get in my way, that's all."

As these things went, Mia decided, he was a much better actor than she was. Glad he'd thrown her the line, she gave a grin and pushed the conversation to the back of her head, where she kept everything she didn't like to look at about this entire operation.

They had no time for more soul-searching anyway. The easy part was over, dropping them two levels below the surface of Blume HQ, with only five more stories to get down to the development labs and the server farm, where Blume kept their most valuable data.

Mia and Pearce followed the hallway to a lounge are. It was filled with bar tables and sofas, a pool table in the middle and old arcade machines lined up along one wall, vending machines an another.

It was only sparsely populated. A BCP officer and another employee, engrossed in flirting with each other, three other young people leaning over a tablet together, each with a steaming cup in their hands, laughing at whatever they were watching. A woman sat alone on a sofa, VR glasses over her eyes. None of them paid the newcomers any attention.

A length of thick, green bamboo blocked off a direct view from the lounge to the restroom doors.

"Bathroom break," Pearce announced, glanced over the signs by the doors, they were both being marked as unisex.

Public restrooms were one of the few places with limited surveillance due to privacy reasons. Nevertheless, a drone nestled on the roof of the bathroom as well as anywhere else. Mia looked up, flicked a finger over her phone to confirm what she'd counted on: the drone wasn't actively monitoring its surrounding. It would likely only wake if it received a remote command to do so. She couldn't check if Blume had installed something more covet, she wouldn't put it past them, but she hoped restrooms weren't high on the priority list.

They used the restroom to change out of the unnecessary layer of clothing, pried off the adhesive foil and reapplied them to their shoulders. Pearce stuffed the rest into a garbage bin and Mia, after a moment's hesitation, followed. She breathed a little easier without the extra weight, made her a little more confident of the obstacle ahead.

Combined with the jeans they both wore, the near-combat gear might just about pass as ordinary clothing if people couldn't get a long look, or knew what the slight leathery texture of their shirts meant, the bulk of the backpack and the gun holsters.

Pearce checked the rope gun and reloaded the EMP before he put it into a holster at his hip, where it was less likely to get in the way of climbing than the shoulder holster her normally preferred.

Mia wondered briefly what sort of policy Blume had in regards to civilian employees and open carry, but the line of thought was idle, running through her mind as she finished and pulled her backpack around her shoulders again.

Pearce looked her over and for a moment Mia felt like a child whose parent wanted to make sure she wore a weather appropriate coat and had managed not to put the left shoe on her right foot.

In response, she gave back the critical look, it was only fair. Pearce was a little slimmer than she'd remembered him, as if he'd streamlined his muscular bulk for efficiency, sleek in close-fitting black, channeling some cyberpunk fantasy.

He brushed past her blatant appraisal and its thinly veiled envy and remnant slither of infatuation. He pulled out his phone, focussed on it for a moment instead of the Lens as he tapped on it. A moment later, a notification flared up in Mia's eye, informing her that she'd been added in a conference call with Wyland, though it only sad 'D' on the display.

Somewhat reluctantly, she focussed on the present.

"We're almost ready," Pearce said. He unlocked the door and glanced at Mia, who only nodded, pulling her lighter backpack straight over her shoulder.

It took a long moment until Wyland replied, too long for comfort, but he was finally heard to sigh, then clear his throat.

_"Almost?"_ he asked. _"Call again when you're _actually _ready. We're measuring my access in minutes, not extra hours." _

"I wanted to give you a heads up where we are," Pearce said, a little sharply. "We're heading for the elevator right now."

Again the people in the lounge didn't even look at them and the drones remained dormant above them. She hadn't kept count of the number of drones they'd passed on the way in, but she had a feeling they would both be out of bullets and EMP charges before Blume ran out of drones. She hadn't even seen them in action, yet, but Ray's account of his and Pearce's encounter with them when staking out Tech Meadows had left a deep gash in her peace of mind.

Back at the elevator, they checked both access doors from the hallways and spotted nobody around, but they didn't have much time. The lounge was clearly where the members of this department hung out, any minute, someone could decide to come by.

Pearce hit the elevator button, waited until it arrived.

"Now," he said told Wyland as he stepped in, hit the key for the floor above and stepped back out. The elevator's doors closed and the quiet rumble announced that it was travelling to it's destination.

Wyland hadn't given any confirmation he had control of the surveillance. He'd only spared a low grunt, but Mia assumed it was better than nothing.

She waited until Pearce had withdrawn the crowbar and applied it to the miniature gap between the elevator doors. A normal crowbar would be a far too blunt instrument, but this one didn't look out of place. The front edge consisted of several layers of folded graphene, allowing for a nano-thin edge able to fit into even the smallest gap.

Mia shot an EMP projectile where the door's lock mechanism was and a small, barely audible click announced that it had given way. Pearce leaned into the crowbar, pried open the doors until he could slide more of the steel tool in and lever it open. Even with the lock disengaged, he had to work against the low magnetism of the doors and the weight of the doors themselves.

With only a small sense of unease, Mia pushed her fingers into the gap and pulled the other way. Finally, the door hit a critical point and slid open completely.

The elevator shaft gaped by their feet and Mia swallowed dryly before she remembered heights didn't bother her, though to be honest, this kind of black hole wasn't the kind she usually had in mind. Her experience consisted more of buildings and bridges, staked towers of shipping containers or cars, all of them objects which had a multitude of handholds to navigate them. The elevator shaft, in comparison, was nearly perfectly smooth on the inside, save for the guide rails in the corners.

"Ah shit," Pearce muttered.

While she'd been looking down, Pearce had looked up at the elevator that hung on the floor above, where Wyland was hopefully keeping it until they had attached.

Riding down _in _the elevator wasn't going to work, it'd simply reject them based on their IDs. Riding on _top _of it wouldn't work because they had no way to access the door on the lowest floor. In addition, no one knew if vibration from above wouldn't activate the drone inside the elevator. So they could only get down _below _the elevator_._

The undercarriage of the elevator was unexpectedly compact, it wasn't covered, but as Mia studied it, she understood what had prompted Pearce's remark. They couldn't shoot the rope up there, there wasn't anything obvious to attach it to.

_"Hurry the fuck up," _Wyland sneered. _"I sent an out of order notice to two employees already. These things count towards the overall number of unscheduled outages, you know. I can't hold the thing up there forever." _

"Wait," Pearce demanded. Wyland grumbled, but had enough sense not to waste time on arguing.

Pearce's gaze tracked over the bottom of the elevator cabin again.

"There," he said then, pointed with the crowbar.

"Where?" Mia squinted in the semi-twilight, followed the line of started by the crowbar. Pearce dropped the tool when he thought she had spotted what he meant and leant back out of the elevator.

"You'll need to take my pack for a moment," he then said.

"I don't see…" Mia started and frowned a little harder when she saw Pearce heft the rope gun.

"The brake," Pearce said. "I can hold on to it and attach the rope by hand."

Slightly disbelieving, Mia looked back at the corner of the elevator. The cabin rested on brakes in all corners, a metal hook adding stability. Pearce shot the rope before Mia had any chance to argue the risks, even before she knew if she _wanted _to argue the risks.

They should've brought proper climbing harnesses, Mia thought, but there'd been a limit to how many tools they could stuff into their packs without arousing suspicion and Pearce had deemed harnesses unnecessary.

Pearce simply wrapped the rope around his hand and leapt. He caught the rope with his other hand and Mia supposed he might have been able to jump to the handhold directly if he had really needed to. He hauled himself up, tangled his feet in the rope so he could semi-stand on the rope with one foot, taking some of the pressure off his arms to work.

Mia pulled loose the tip of the rope and tossed him the second gun, he snatched it from the air, waited a moment until he'd stopped swaying, than pulled himself up further, found something to attach the rope to somewhere in the depth of the cabin's undercarriage.

He swung to the other rope, detached the rope from the brake handle on another spot in the undercarriage.

"Toss me my backpack," he said.

Mia did and Pearce swung it back around, seemingly unconcerned about his swaying or the certain death below his feet. He swung the second rope towards Mia, so she could grasp it.

She knew she shouldn't hold her breath, but it was practically the only way she could launch herself off the edge of solid ground. Gravity pulled at her, a sudden sharp lurch and strain in her arm muscles as they had to take her full weight.

After the first moment, when the adrenaline spike started to wane and she could think clearly, she regained some height and hung by Pearce's side.

"We're good," Pearce told Wyland.

_"Finally," _Wyland huffed.

The doors to the second floor closed, trapping them in darkness. The echo in the elongated, but narrow space was odd, making Mia hear her own breathing like a metallic kind of thunder in her ears. After another moment, the elevator slid into motion.

"You realise we're being crushed if this thing goes all the way down, right?" Mia asked. She wasn't sure if she was still trying to joke about it, in the pitch-black darkness she didn't seem to need the extra disguise.

_"You won't," _Wyland said, reminding her she wasn't alone with Pearce and that Wyland and his attitude were privy to her introspective moment irked her.

Pearce chuckled. Perhaps the thought of being crushed on the super-secure mainframe level of Blume HQ amused him. Indeed, there was a dark kind of humour in it, Mia imaged how their rotting bodies would fill the place with an unbearable stench until someone finally found out what had happened.

_"Problem," _Wyland announced and a moment later, the elevator stopped.

Mia peered down in the darkness, trying to gauge how far down they'd already come.

_"You can't unlock the door, you'll have to get off on the sixth floor," _Wyland explained. _"There's a stairwell access to the server floor from there." _

"I don't know the layout," Pearce pointed out.

_"Humph." _

Pearce's phone buzzed when it received a message.

_"I sent you floor-plans," _Wyland said. _"They are _not _correct, the actual plans are kept under locks, but it should give you an idea." _

He sniggered, _"You can't miss the servers anyway." _

"What do you mean?" Mia asked.

_"You'll see," _Wyland said, still sniggering. _"But don't get any ideas, the floor's solid." _

"The floor? What the hell?"

"Wyland…" Pearce warned, wintery low in impatience.

Wyland only snorted in derision, far from intimidated and he didn't elaborate. He said, _"I believe that's your floor. Get moving, I have no plans to die of old age here."_

He paused for a moment, then, very quietly, he added, "… _even if that was an option."_

* * *

The floor on the sixth sub-level of Blume was glass. Endless rows of servers below it, running into the distance underneath semi-transparent walls, sectioning off labs and offices. Some of the walls were glass, too, broad enough to house fish tanks or full-blown walk-in rock gardens. Everything was lit by daylight lamps and even the air smelled fresh and clean.

"Damn," Mia exclaimed. "I should've applied here."

Pearce shot an EMP projectile at the drone in the ceiling, buying them the time they needed to exit the elevator shaft, a few more precious seconds to catch their bearing and let some blood reinvigorate their hands and arms.

Pearce had written an app that calculated visibility angles for the drones. The app used up a ridiculous amount of computing power and required the user focus on the drone for some time while holding without moving too much. Because of this, only Mia's was switched on, forcing her to stay put against her every instinct while she stared at the drone as if she hoped it'd blink first.

The overlay lit up the room and she dashed for the corner without giving Pearce any advance warning, but he was focussed on her, picked up her cues with ease and slipped into motion easily, getting them both to a narrow blind spot before the drone rebooted.

It seemed like not a lot of people got to work in the luxury department. For the first part of the trip, all the open-space cubicles and lounge corners were empty and they made progress without many starts and stops. They had to use the EMP gun only on a handful of drones, keeping their overall error count to a minimum.

They heard the music playing well before they got close, knock-off turn-of-the-millenium rap revival, by Mia's sour-faced estimate.

She manoeuvred them into an alcove between potted ginkgo trees and a high rack of prayer rugs. Crammed in close with Pearce, just out of sight of the drone, Mia pulled another face.

"Now?" she asked.

"Get your mask up," Pearce said, pulled what looked like cloth over her face, though its edge slipped closed to his skin and provided a passable air filter for several minutes. They had to jostle back and forth until he could fish the can from the backpack and she had her mask in place.

"Roll it where the drone won't see," he said as he shoved the can in her hand. It was already activated, hissing quietly as it released the invisible knock-out gas. She wasn't too confident, the drone had pretty good view of where the people were, but she aimed and slithered down, gave the can a shove and let it roll gently over the floor. It came to lie under a coffee table by two beanbags.

She shuffled back up, caught Pearce's gaze and he nodded, already the conversation ahead of them began to dim, making the music seem louder.

_"Where are you?" _Wyland asked. He'd been quiet for so long, Mia had almost forgotten he was there.

"A post-it note said 'Here be tentacles'," Mia said sardonically.

She felt Pearce's hand move near her thigh as he tapped on his phone and added, "That's designated area 6-15b on the blueprints you sent."

_"I'd hoped you'd move faster," _Wyland said. His ever present sneer and jaded drawl had vanished, replaced by a more disconcertingly neutral calm.

"Why don't you come down and show us how it's done?" Mia asked.

"How close are they?" Pearce asked, ignoring her. He sounded serious.

_"Security figured they're being hacked. I can lead them on for a while, but they'll soon figure out it's an inside job." _

"How far did my virus spread?"

_"It wasn't detected, but it's not… well, it's not very infectious, either." _

Pearce leaned his face past her shoulder to peer around the corner. Mia pushed her shoulder into him to stop him from leaning too far. The music was the only sound they heard by then, indicating the people had been put to sleep.

_"It's only infected 11.7% of the drones," _Wyland said and his attitude slowly returned. _"But for eyeballing their firewalls, it's better than I thought. I couldn't have done _much _better." _

"You couldn't do it all," Pearce observed. "Shut it for a sec."

Pearce raised the EMP gun, slid to the very edge of the alcove and stepped out around the corner. In only a split second, he took aim and fired. Unlike the other times, however, he fired two shots.

He stepped out in the open and Mia followed.

Sparks flew from the socket in the ceiling, then the drone dropped to the ground and landed with a low metallic thud.

"I was wondering what'd happen," Pearce remarked. Mia saw he'd fired the second projectile at the socket, not the drone. It must have disengaged the mechanism keeping the drone in place.

"Was that a good idea?" she asked. If the drone started to move, there was no way the app could keep up with calculating the angles correctly.

"Don't worry," Pearce said and quickly stepped over the drone, turned it around and slid open a small panel. As Mia stepped in close, she spotted the small touchscreen display. Pearce pulled out a switchblade and let it snap open, used it to pry the screen away, then dug with the knife into the innards of the drone behind it and pulled out the battery.

"Dave?" Mia asked. "Did that raise an alarm?"

_"There was a spike in the drone's network," _Wyland said. _"They're… confused." _

"Good enough," Pearce said and stepped around the drone and towards a workstation. A man and a woman had collapsed near it. They'd both have some bad cramps judging from their position in addition to the headache and other hangover-like symptoms the gas would leave them with.

Transparent screens hung on thin suspensions in front of the desk, the central one displayed several open windows with programme code, something that looked like diagnostics and, just behind so only the edge was visible, some big-breasted anime girl.

"Hot damn," Mia whistled, stepped in close as Pearce. A second screen showed the same anime image. "Is that porn?"

Pearce pulled a chair close and sat down, scrolling through the data that had been opened on the screen, long lines of code.

"We both know the correct term is hentai, Mia," Pearce said without looking at her, focussed on the code rather than the image or Mia.

Despite herself, Mia laughed, "Now the tentacle thing makes sense…"

_"What the fuck are you even _doing_?" _Wyland demanded.

"It's a converter," Pearce said. "It converts 2D to 3D and to VR." He nodded appreciatively. "That's one hell of a market."

"Virtual porn?"

"Can you think of anything bigger?"

_"Whatever you do, you need to stop right now," _Wyland said, sounding exasperated. _"And keep moving." _

Pearce ignored him. He'd disabled the drone to get his fingers on a Blume workstation and he didn't mind if it was porn or something else. The way he'd fixated on the code the moment it had become possible gave it away.

Mia drifted away from him, found another workstation, clearly working on the same project, though by the looks of it, the person was testing the converter out on other input video, with apparently much less desirable results. It seemed the abstraction of cartoons made it easier.

Pearce found his way through the workstation's OS without any difficulty. Superficially, it wasn't much different than Blume's old desktop OS, but once he tried to access the source code through some of the old exploits, nothing worked.

He fished a drive from his pocket and dropped it near the computer, then pulled out his phone and tabbed through several settings.

"You're taking it?" Mia asked, eyebrows wandering up, glancing at him through the glass.

"I'm…" he said and trailed off in concentration as the system refused to transfer. Ideally, he'd simply take a complete copy of the hard-drive, but it demanded credentials he couldn't provide. If he had time, he could probably crack it, but time was the only thing he didn't have.

It did, however, let him make a copy of the converter.

"I'm taking the converter," he finally answered.

_"Look," _Wyland said. _"Am I dying for your dirty habits right now?" _

"You don't have to die," Pearce said. "You could've ran. You probably still can."

_"Yeah, well," _Wyland said noncommittally. _"If you don't get moving right now, I will." _

"He's got a point, Pearce," Mia said, sidled back to Pearce's side. Glancing around, the people gave no sign they'd be waking up soon, though the ventilation must have dispersed of the gas by then.

Pearce didn't react for another minute, but before Mia could bring herself to start an argument, he snatched the drive up and pocketed it as he got up.

_"Hey," _Wyland said roughly. _"Miles to go and promises to keep, in case you've forgotten." _

"What promises?" Pearce inquired, but mildly.

They did keep moving, though, as Pearce and Wyland spoke, Mia and Pearce working the same rhythm into which they'd fallen since arriving on the floor.

_"Why do you think I'm helping you?" _Wyland asked. _"So you can jack it to virtual cartoons?" _

"It'd make for a good story."

_"A sad joke, maybe." _

"You're helping me because I asked," Pearce finally answered. "It's simple."

_"No," _Wyland said. _"I don't even like you." _

"Doesn't matter."

Not unlike their hike through the forest, time turned into an oddly insubstantial, but still steadily depleting commodity. Wyland said nothing more and it was hard to guess how much time they really had. Mia looked at her clock only twice and realised it had been barely an hour since they'd climbed the wall, even if it felt like a lifetime ago.

They worked their way through the complex systematically. Pearce disabled the drone with the EMP gun then Mia stepped out to allow the app to scan and predict the angle. She took the lead moving through the area and Pearce shadowed her every seemingly non-sensical zig-zag.

They came across very few people and avoided them where they could. They had to use the knockout gas only twice more and once Pearce simply punched a young woman in the face as she unexpectedly turned a corner and stumbled into them. They left her unconscious in a blind spot. Mia supposed they'd be the first to know when she was found.

The longer they went, the fewer people there were until they left the open-spaced workstations behind and solid walls blocked off large parts of the area, narrowed down to long, straight corridors as a firm reminder just how deep underground they were. Only the floor remained transparent, teasing them with what they still couldn't get to. Small plagues announced they were going through some sort of industrial clean-room area, Blume's hardware development lab.

Blume wasn't a notable player in the consumer end of the market, but they were slowly pushing towards providing out-of-the-box for everyone, not just governments and businesses able to pay for their large-scale security and surveillance installation.

The corridor ended on a set of pale white double doors, though the only reason it didn't look like a dead-end wall was because the door was outlined with stripes of black metal and a transparent monitor was affixed to the wall on one side. A light projection hovered across the door, visible only when viewed through a digital Lens' specific ways to process visual input.

[Server Access]

Unexpectedly, Wyland spoke up, _"You're right. It's simple." _

Mia heard something in his tone that hadn't been there before. He sounded rough, burned out in ways she was only just beginning to grasp and only because she'd spent so much time with Pearce, Ray and Tobias. They were all running a fever, it exhausted them even while it filled them with sick energy.

He was also breathing a little harder, as if he'd been running or at least walking too fast or too far. If he had been forced out of his office and was on the move…

_"And it doesn't matter."_

Pearce either didn't notice or didn't care. He pulled out the crowbar and carefully tested it against the smooth surface of the door. Even with the graphene edge, he had problems finding the gap for the crowbar to hook into.

"Mia?" he prompted when she hadn't moved.

"I don't…" she started. "Pearce, there's something wrong."

"I know," he said, his voice grating over her nerves, commanding tone vibrating in the air. "Shoot the lock."

In her ear, she heard something crash from Wyland's end, furniture shattering, the thin sound of breaking glass and the cackle of electricity let loose. Mia thought it should be louder, more voices, more gunshots, but the connection just cut out without any decorum.

"Mia!"

She shook into motion, unable to not follow the order, pulled out the EMP gun and aimed at the monitor, but then hesitated, not sure where the locking mechanism actually was, everything looked too homogenous.

A low, metallic sound dragged her attention and she wasted time by turning her head around and watch as the drones drop from their immobile sockets on the ceiling.

"Shoot the door," Pearce ordered and Mia stopped thinking just did as she was told. The projectile hit the door, the small EMP blast radius hopefully just big enough to encompass the entire width of the door and the monitor.

The [Server Access] sign went out and Pearce threw his weight into the crowbar to force it into the tiny gap, but he couldn't get it in far enough for proper leverage. He tried again, snarling as he made no noticeable headway.

The drones shot their first taser at them, impacting Pearce's protected back and Mia's arm. She stepped away from him and back into the corridor, getting out of Pearce's way and shielding him from the drones.

The EMP gun took them out easily, sometimes even two at a time when they were close enough together and they didn't seem able to reboot quickly.

"It's all of them, right?" Mia inquired, a little breathless not from exertion but from tension. "The entire fucking floor."

Pearce answered with a curse and she heard him beat his fist into the door in frustration before he leaned in behind the crowbar again.

The drones paused firing, just hung in the hallway almost motionless and Mia used the moment to look back at Pearce. He'd finally managed to get the crowbar into the gap, lever the doors open by an inch and pushed the crowbar further, finally able to apply some proper pressure.

"They stopped," Pearce remarked, though without looking away from what he's was doing. He set his foot into the opening, hacked the crowbar into it further up and finally pushed his whole body in, forcing the door open. Unlike the elevator doors, this one didn't eventually snap open on its own.

"I don't…" Mia began to say, before she realised that she actually _knew _why the drones had stopped firing at them, or indeed seemed to be doing nothing at all. They were processing the new information. They had already had an encounter with Pearce and T-Bone out in the Pawnee, where tasering them had also failed due to the material of the bullet proof vest. Now several of their projectiles had also failed and they _were _a self-improving system.

"Fuck."

Behind the door, there was a stairwell and beyond that, another double door, this one mode of glass, revealing an endlessly long corridor between servers. As Pearce straightened away from his struggle with the door, the drones shook into motion again, changed their alignment amongst themselves for some reason. Instinctively, Mia let herself drop to her knees and the taser hissed past where her head had been.

At the same time Pearce dipped down into the stairwell to avoid them. For a second, she met his gaze, saw something burning there that would frighten her, if she had the time and mental capacity.

"Cover me," he demanded. He tossed her his EMP gun before he turned away from her, drawing his semi-automatic revolver instead.

With an EMP gun in each hand, Mia turned her back on Pearce and the server, focussed on taking down as many drones as she could. It was almost hypnotic in a way, the repetition, the way she didn't have a lot of space to move or dodge. The drones were still struggling with adapting their methods, their aim was off, the heads of their targets much harder to hit than their torso.

Behind her, she heard Pearce's first shot impact the door, followed by the hiss as the bullet ricochetted and veered off into the corridor, punching into a drone, making it dropped down trailing a thin line of smoke.

Mia caught a glimpse of Pearce as he fired several more shots at the same spot of the door, hoping to wear through the reinforced material. He fired again, then flinched back with a surprised yelp. He swayed out of her line of sight, but steadied himself, a small wet patch of glistening blood on his jaw, just above the collar.

The drones blocked her view and Mia realised they were too close and too many. She tried to roll away, but had nowhere to go and no time to do it fast enough anyway. In slow-motion, she saw the drone right above her head, saw the tiny spikes of the projectile and felt it tear through the skin of her forehead before she could bring up her arm.

She felt her body go stiff as her muscles pulled to breaking point. It hurt like being turned to solid stone, it washed over her and took away her body, made it not her's anymore. Her eyes were locked open so wide, her vision began to swim and fade. Then it stopped and her body went so limp, she wouldn't have been surprised if she'd decomposed into a puddle right there on the floor.

She saw Pearce's blurred outline step over her and a moment later she heard a metallic clanking sound, then another. She couldn't place what it was, she couldn't see and she still needed to find the courage to try and move her arm.

"Mia!" Pearce shouted, he didn't sound particularly compassionate, most of his voice conveyed impatience and annoyance, though whether with her for being downed or with the overall situation, Mia didn't know. She blinked again, shifted her arms and groaned at the soreness in her entire body.

There were several shots, then Pearce bulk was over her again, picking her up by her arms and hauling her to her feet, leaning her into the wall.

"I can't see," she mumbled.

"Your Lenses," he snapped. "They're broken."

She brought her hands up and swiped through her eyes, retrieving the Lens, then blinked a few times. This time, her surrounding finally became clear again.

The hallway was littered with drones, somehow, Pearce had managed to take down the remaining ones, though they could only have a few moments of respite.

"Did you bash them with the crowbar?" Mia asked, faint awe creeping into her tone. "Oh man, I wish I'd seen it."

She chuckled in tired amusement as she let her head drop back. "Do it again."

There was no answering humour in Pearce's gaze, digging into Mia's and forcing her to sober up, dredge up what composure she could.

"Are we in?" Mia finally asked.

She looked past Pearce and down the stairwell. Pearce's shots had left a black patch on the doors, but he hadn't been able to get through.

He shook his head, face grim right in front of her, jaw clenched tight with blood still seeping into his collar and smeared across his cheek.

"What do we do?" she asked, but already saw in his eyes that he had no answer.

The server they had come for was right there, behind that door, perhaps they could even _see _it already, close enough. Access to Blume's dirtiest secrets, their source codes, everything they'd come to find.

Pearce's gaze burned into hers. He was still holding her up with a hand by her shoulder, she wasn't sure she needed it, but he hadn't taken it back. It was a point of connection, making her feel his intensity, travelling through his arm and into her shoulder, almost more invasive than the taser had been.

From the corners of her eyes, she spotted movement down the hall. More drones, she guessed.

"Pearce," she said and nothing more.

His gaze left her face, seared a burning trail down her body, sizing up her physical and mental state, before he snapped his attention back to her face in silence. He was calculating, she could tell. Perhaps the taser had given her superpowers and she could read his thoughts. The time it would take to break through the second door with the EMP and the crowbar, the time they needed to find the right server. He hadn't been able to copy the contents from the hentai workstation, he'd need time to crack the server and then transfer the data, which even with the lightning fast nano drives would take several minutes.

He was calculating if she could hold off Blume's security for that long, if she was in any state to make a difference if he threw her to the hounds, all the while keeping her pinned to the wall. If the answer to all that was _yes, _he wouldn't let her go.

His mouth formed a tight line in his face, the muscles playing along his jaw and eyes narrowed to predatory slit. He took a strained breath, snatched his arm from her shoulder and turned away from the server room doors.

"We have to leave," he said in low rasp, so harsh it must leave his throat bleeding from the abrasion. "Now."

She wouldn't argue, they could deal with the crushing sense of defeat later, when there was still something left of them both. She picked up both EMP guns, checked how much charge they both still had and liked the result somewhat better than she'd thought.

Her body still felt alien, but it followed her orders well enough, or perhaps it was following Pearce's orders, which made slightly more sense to her still addled mind. She didn't want to know how well she'd do in a fight, but she had a feeling she'd find it out soon enough.

There were only a handful of drones and they made no move to attack them. Instead, they hovered up and slotted themselves back into their sockets on the ceiling.

Mia exchanged a questioning look with Pearce and he opened his mouth to answer, but then the lights went out. Canned, dark ride laughter filled the hallway and then the monitors came back on. It showed the picture of gravestone, the pixelated skull on it jerked its jaw wide open as if it was laughing, a red glow flashing rhythmically in its pitch-black eye-sockets.

A comic book font splashed across it in clashing colours.

DEDSEC IS BACK! TIME TO RUN!

The canned laughter merged into a horror movie scream, then the laughter came back, overlaying it.

Pearce's hand closed around her arm again, pulling her into motion, making her run, just like the message said.

* * *

_End of Gunmetal Sky - Part 1_

* * *

**Reference: **"But man is not made for defeat" from The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway (who I have no business quoting while I'm so pointlessly wordy all the time…)

* * *

**Author's Note: **So, now that you've read it, is the pacing really off? Is it too slow? Or does it just feel that way to me? I know I keep getting lost in too much blow-by-blow, it's damn irritating… but let me tell you that describing all this stuff is really relaxing.


	70. Gunmetal Sky - Part 2

**_Gunmetal Sky – P****art 2**

* * *

Mia stumbled in the dark and Pearce shot his arm out to steady her before he realised he'd been doing it. She made a hissing noise at the back of her throat, as annoyed by her body's lack of cooperation as he was.

Without Lenses, she would have to rely on her phone's screen for everything with all the time consumption and distraction it entailed, but Pearce decided to cross that bridge when they got to it. He pushed her back into the wall, waited for a heartbeat longer until she had the strength to be pulled along by him.

He did, however, envy Mia's lack of Lenses on another front. Whatever Dave had done, he had dug deep into Blume, most likely some of their less essential and thus less well protected systems. Like the projection on the server access door, DedSec's tired old hipster iconography was splashed hovering against the walls and the ceiling, shifting with his movements to make the mocking skulls always seem like they were looking right at him.

As he hurried along the hallway, Pearce used the respite to put the pieces together, though in truth there wasn't much unexpected. He'd always known getting this deep into Blume would take more time and more luck then they had. His virus and Dave's access had always only been enough to give them a chance to _get out _again. He'd spare the breath for a laugh, but he didn't like the taste of it.

He shouldn't have let T-Bone talk him into it in the first place. T-Bone wanted Blume, so he could damn well go and get it himself. Which, of course, had come off the table quite quickly once T-Bone had grit his teeth and admitted he wasn't up to the physical side of it. At least they were both spared hurling accusations at each other now that shit had hit the fan, as Pearce was fairly sure he'd pointed out it would.

As expected, Blume had sealed the doors to the labs tight. He wouldn't have tried going through them even so, there was no second exit on the layout he had so even if it existed, he had no time to search for it. Sealing the doors was likely a precaution, protecting precious research and equipment in the labs as well as keeping unarmed personnel out of the line of fire. It also left just one way open for them to flee and BCP had had enough time to prepare themselves.

His swiped his attention over Mia and then sped up, getting ahead of her and falling into an all out sprint, so when he reached the double doors to the open-plan office beyond, he was hitting it at full speed, burst through the door with his gun already drawn and the baton ready to spring free to deliver the first blow.

Without recourse to most of his apps, he had to tag his enemies the old fashioned way, figure out their positions and memorise them. From a leaked version of BCP's training manual, he knew they operated in units of three for efficiency in crammed spaces like offices and based on the number of shots already fired at them, he guessed at least two units were already in cover ahead of them. His armour could take most of the heat and the shifting, flickering light and the shrieking of DedSec's last stand would hinder his enemies more than him.

He could take on six people.

In the flickering light, he had only a split second to map the room, spot the BCP officers hunkered down on the other end of the room, their bulk barely more than a shadow. A unit of three on the right was much closer to him, circling a large, round conference table to flank him while the group by the door caught his attention.

"FREEZE! THIS IS BCP!" someone called, apparently ordered not to shoot on sight. If nothing else, it proved Blume hadn't identified him, yet.

"STOP AND…!"

Pearce dove to the side, ran past a row of desks and the glass walls separating them in the time it took for the unit by the table to realise he was coming for them. They twisted around, but the one nearest Pearce had no chance to even try to deflect the blow.

Using the edge of the wall as a slippery handhold, Pearce threw himself around the corner sharply, landed his boot firmly in the first man's face. He grunted and toppled back, as Pearce stepped past him, dropped low and smashed the extended baton into the next man's shin, where the armour was thinnest to allow freer movement. He snapped the baton up, caught the man below the chin, then snapped the baton to the side and smack the gun the man was trying to raise out of his hand.

By then, the first man had struggled back around, yelled a curse, inflection wet and enraged from his smashed in nose. Pearce whirled around, knocked the gun aside with the baton, pulled his own gun up and shot him in the face, the burst of his automatic pistol perforating his features and dropping him motionless on the ground. Immediately, he whipped the gun around and fired a burst for the second man. He was higher than the first and took the bullet to the throat and jaw, but it killed him just the same.

The third member of the unit, a little further away with a potted plant preventing Pearce to lung for her in a direct line, used the chance to draw back, yell a last warning, though from the direction of her head, Pearce could tell she was more than a little disturbed by her companions' fate.

She fired, high rasp of her SMG, but Pearce stepped aside swiftly, dipped behind the same plant she was using as cover and held it between them as she whipped around to follow him. She took a step forward, past the plant to find a better angle to shoot, but Pearce was faster. He shot her right knee, but she tried to aim at him even as she buckled, a second shot ripped the SMG from her hand.

Pearce launched himself at her, knocked the baton flat against her throat and yanked back as he stepped past her, crushing her throat. Her arms flailed aimlessly, making pathetic gargling sounds as he dropped her.

It had taken only a few moments, barely enough for the second unit to rearrange their tactic, but they were too far for him to reach them quickly, so Pearce drew back into the shadows of a desk and ran the length of it, hoping the BCP officers would lose sight of him, if only for a moment.

In the meantime, Mia had sneaked in under the radar while he'd been drawing everyone's fire. Stealing a quick glance around the room, he caught sight of her briefly as she made her way along the outer edge. Whatever noise she'd make, the canned laughter from Dave's DedSec hack would drown it out as long as she was careful.

They couldn't afford to be hemmed in, they needed to keep moving. If they made it to the elevator at all, then he'd reconsider their chances, not before.

BCP had given up all attempts at a peaceful solution, they shouted no more warnings, the moment Pearce became visible past a glass wall, they opened fire. Their bullets tore through the wall and sent a million glittering shards raining over him as he dove out of the spray. The suit he wore would deflect the worst, but he'd still feel the impact of that many bullets and the material would wear thin eventually.

He rolled back to his feet and returned fire, aiming for faces and throats, at the gloved hands that held the SMGs. He shot one man trying to make a run for him, brought his gun around and felled his companion before she could dive into cover. She rolled back to her feet behind a coffee-table, ready to shoot, but Pearce had only waited for her to stop moving so he didn't waste any bullets.

Almost simultaneously he heard the bang of Mia's gun and he shifted out of cover to see the third member of the BCP unit stumble as he took a bullet to the back of the head.

Pearce regained his feet instantly and hurried to rejoin Mia.

She still looked a little shaken, but she managed to fake a quick smile and waste a moment's look at the bodies strewn around the room, something he didn't do and instead pushed through the door into the next hallway.

Blume must have evacuated the labs and offices, they encountered no one but BCP personnel, even the rooms they'd had to clear with knockout gas were empty as they retraced their steps back to the elevator.

Whatever prank Wyland had played on Blume, it seemed to prove surprisingly hard for their engineers to turn off. As they ran and fought through the lowest level of Tech Meadows, the laughing skull accompanied them, its presence a reassurance that Blume had no control over their own facilities anymore. If this was true, then Blume couldn't see them through the remaining stationary cameras and most of the drones were damaged or downed back at the server access door. The remaining drones made no move against them, Pearce's virus couldn't affect them like this, but perhaps Wyland had done something else to them. Lack of hacking talent had never been DedSec's problem, after all.

Their goal now was clear, make the elevator before Blume regained control of their security network. They couldn't afford to get bogged down in a drawn-out fight, but BCP was slow to get units lined up against them in sufficient numbers. The maze-like layout of the floor seemed to help, funnel their enemies to them in bite-sized numbers, easily and quickly taken down.

They ran into a break lounge, furnished very much like the one they had come through on the way down. They'd been forced to take a different route than coming in and the uncertainty of the floor-plans kept pulling at Pearce's from the back of his mind. Any turn they took could lead them into an unexpected dead-end, force them to backtrack and buy their enemies more time to organise.

The lounge had several doors leading off to other open-plan offices and game rooms. BCP had already taken position here, pushing in through all the doors in greater numbers, but when Pearce dove behind cover, he caught a glimpse through one of the doors and the hallway beyond, spotting an elevator door, firmly closed by Dave's hacks and Pearce's virus.

He curled back to his feet, stole a quick look around the room to count down the BCP officers swarming into the room. They opened fire the moment they saw him, other shots went off further to the side, to where Mia had dropped into cover.

Bullets ripped the furniture apart easily, just plastics and acrylic glass, brushed steel finish and high-end transparent computer screens offered no real protection except for giving Pearce a chance to navigate on his own terms. He leapt onto a table, felt a bullet impact his arm, but the suit he wore meant he'd suffered nothing but a slight bruise. He ran the length of the table, watched his enemies from the corner of his eyes and careened to the side at the last, unexpected moment, just when they thought they knew where he'd been going.

He smacked the baton into a man's face, twisted around and stepped into a woman's knee and brought the baton around to break her nose. The third member of their unit brought her gun up, despite the close quarters, trying to bring it level to his unprotected head, but he jumped her and tackled her to the ground, hand closed around her wrist. He heard her gun make a quiet error sound as she lost her grip on it, warning him not to try and use it. She began rolling away from him, scrambling for her gun, but Pearce got up faster, kicked it away and stepped on her hand, twisted the baton and stabbed the tip down where her neck met her head.

She made a low, wheezing sound as she went limp under him.

Pearce sensed rather than saw someone step in close behind him, dropped himself to the side before another BCP officer could tackle him. The baton had retracted a few inches with the blow, but from this position, kicking his heel into the man's chest was faster and drove the air from his lungs.

"Pearce!" Mia yelled from across the room. "Mask!"

Standing up, he brought the baton back to its full length with a flick of his wrist and pulled his mask over his nose and mouth, then twisted around to launch himself at his next attacker.

The knockout gas was a good idea. It wasn't meant for combat situations, it wasn't strong enough to take people under who knew what was happening and were pumped up on adrenaline, but it would give them a small edge, by slowing their enemies' reflexes down.

Mia dispatched several of the canisters into adjoining rooms and especially into the hall outside the elevator. She ran after the last one immediately, was gone from his sight while he downed his current opponent and stepped over him as he lay there whimpering. He'd cleared his immediate surrounding, but there were still more personnel pushing into the room through the invisible knockout gas.

Pearce pulled his gun, aimed and waited for half a heartbeat until he fired, making sure he dropped three people in the doorway, hindering the ones behind them by having to lug them out of the way or even applying first aid.

Without waiting, he fell into a short run, reached the door to the hallway where he spotted Mia working at the elevator with her phone. Just as he watched, the doors slid open and she looked up to catch his gaze.

The room dropped into darkness and silence so hard it felt like a physical blow. It must have hit the BCP people without warning, too, because they didn't use the chance to bullrush them, or perhaps the gas had made them too sluggish to do it.

Mia cursed quietly to herself, realising at the same time as him what it meant. Blume's engineers had finally regained control of their system, shutting it down, resetting it and would be booting it back up any second. The lights flickered back on, pristine and white after the garish DedSec decor, but then the darkness snapped back and filled itself with the same canned laughter.

"I got it!" Mia shouted.

In the tiny moment of brightness, Pearce had spotted someone moving towards him from the room behind him, now he lunged forward blindly and collided with a man's solid frame, who immediately pulled up to defend himself. In the dark, Pearce got a hold of his neck and kept his own feet clear of a swipe, used the moment of slight imbalance against his opponent and swung him around. He'd been aiming for the wall, but he missed it and hit only the doorway, nearly knocking the man from his grip.

"Pearce!" Mia shouted again.

He grunted an annoyed affirmative and dragged the dazed BCP officer with him. Mia had switched on the flashlight of her phone, a tiny beacon from inside the elevator. Pearce threw the man inside ahead of him and stepped through as Mia closed the door and the elevator slipped into motion smoothly.

The light and the laughter came on again as the elevator shuddered and stalled. There was another second of darkness. The laughter died and the light came back.

The elevator didn't move and Pearce watched as Mia dropped her hands from her phone and looked at him wide-eyed.

"I lost it," she said unnecessarily.

Pearce dragged his gaze over the ceiling of the elevator, but there was no drone, so at least they didn't have to worry about that.

"Sitting ducks," Mia observed. "Great. Now all they've got to do is drive us where they want us."

"Hm," Pearce muttered noncommittally. He pushed past her to the BCP officer and hauled his slumped form back up, pushed him into a corner to help keep him upright, gave him a none-too-gentle slap that knocked his face aside.

The side of his face that had collided with the doorway was slowly swelling, blotched red spots, but he blinked into the present slowly. He froze when he finally took stock of his surrounding and realised where he was and who was glowering down on him.

The name tag on the BCP officer's uniform was made from the same material as the adhesive foil Wyland had put on their shoulders earlier. Unlike the foil, though, this one spelt out his name as _C. Fletcher. _

Before Fletcher had enough sense to begin mounting a defence, Pearce aligned the baton with his lower arm and pressed it against Fletcher's throat hard enough to make him choke and only eased up again slightly. Fletcher had his hands half-raised, stopped in mid-movement, neither quite an attack nor quite a surrender.

Fletcher's gaze flittered past Pearce's shoulder to fix on Mia, but snapped back around when he felt Pearce pull his shirt from his trousers, then unzip the shirt and reach underneath.

Confusion washed over Fletcher's face, immediately replaced by growing horror when Pearce pulled up the thin material of the bulletproof shirt he wore. Unlike the suits Pearce and Mia had fabricated for themselves, BCP had access to material as fine as cotton. While it was far more comfortable to wear, it was also much easier to dislodge. Pearce withdrew his hand, pushed harder with the baton when Fletcher began to fidget in an attempt to slide away to the side.

Without taking his gaze off Fletcher's, Pearce drew his gun and pressed the barrel into the now unprotected flesh of Fletcher's stomach.

Despite his dark skin, Fletcher blanched even more than his already unhealthy pallor from the knockout gas and the encounter with the doorway. He sucked in his breath and held it, too tense to even breath.

"Unlock the elevator," Pearce demanded in a low growl.

Fletcher's breathing returned, albeit shallowly, trying not to push into the barrel as if he was afraid that would set it off.

"No," Fletcher forced through clenched teeth. He could barely look at Pearce, could barely breath, but his voice barely wavered, either. He knew he had to hold out only for a short time until BCP took full control of the elevator.

Pearce felt Mia's attention dig into the back of his head, or perhaps she was staring at his hand and the gun. He ignored her, he had no time to talk her through it. Without Wyland, they were trapped and none of them could kill their way out of it.

"Come on," Pearce huffed, sounding more bored than annoyed. "We both know how this'll go."

Clenching his teeth, Fletcher shook his head, body pulled so tense he was vibrating. He looked past Pearce's shoulder, fixed on Mia for a long moment, looking for support and Pearce felt Mia's uncertainty behind him.

Pearce gave Fletcher a warning, a small jab of the gun, increased pressure on his throat, but ultimately, Pearce wasn't in the mood to waste time on more. Never taking his gaze off Fletcher's, he pulled the trigger. The bang was muffled through the clothes and he was close enough to catch the smell of burned flesh.

Fletcher had gone perfectly rigid, mouth open, but he barely managed to make a low strangled sound, like he was already dying, a shudder going through him. He slumped a little, held up mostly by Pearce and the baton on his throat.

"Now," Pearce said, speaking a little slower in case Fletcher was too shocked to comprehend him. "You unlock the elevator, we all ride up and in ten minutes paramedics will save your life."

Fletcher's mouth opened and closed, he didn't blink as he the first shock faded and the agony came crashing down. He made a quiet, whimpering sound of pain. His fingers flexed in the empty air by his side and still without blinking, he looked down to where Pearce hadn't actually removed the gun.

He looked back up, eyes wide and his voice, when he spoke, was thin and broken, but he said, "No. Fuck you."

Coercion was a delicate art. Sometimes, if pushed too hard and too fast, people locked up out of spite, their loyalties and even survival instinct all became secondary, all that mattered was sticking it to the man, but Fletcher wasn't there, he was holding on by the skin of his teeth. Slowly, Pearce dug the barrel of the gun into the open wound, watched as Fletcher clenched his teeth hard in an effort not to scream, but Pearce didn't let up until a choked cry worked its way from Fletcher's throat.

"As deaths go, you've picked one of the bad ones," Pearce said. He pulled the gun back with the same deliberation, feeling Fletcher shiver at the edge of consciousness. Warm blood spilled down over his hand.

Behind him, Pearce heard Mia make a sound, like she was beginning to say his name and couldn't find her voice to do it, but Fletcher almost certainly missed it. Even the hint of support would strengthen his resolve now, but he was caught in a choking alternate reality, alone with Pearce and his torn insides.

"You know what to do," Pearce said calmly, picked up Fletcher's gaze and and led it back to the screen of the elevator controls, pinned it there with the promise of escape or even just relief. Fletcher was still for what felt too long, watery eyes unfocussed and his breathing came in shallow gasps.

Pearce eased up on his hold a little more and shifted to the side to give Fletcher enough room to breathe and steady himself, so he could reach for the display. Obediently, it lit up at his touch.

"Second floor," Pearce said and Fletcher hesitated, his fingers shaking. His face had gone so pale, Pearce wondered if he'd miscalculated and ruptured an artery, in which case Fletcher probably didn't have all of ten minutes. However, Fletcher still had the presence of mind to contemplate disobeying. It was obvious that Pearce was trying to circumvent the BCP forces amassing on ground level, Fletcher was thinking, clear as day written across his forehead, but perhaps if he was fast enough, Fletcher might be able to take them there anyway.

Casually, Pearce pulled the gun back, released the pressure of the baton and stepped back. Fletcher slumped a little, groaning in agony, but he kept his hand on the display and finally shifted his fingers to the glowing number Pearce had demanded.

Just as smoothly as before the elevator started moving again, as if nothing had interrupted it at all.

Pearce stepped away from Fletcher, fairly certain Fletcher was in no condition to attack either him or Mia and Fletcher's bloodshot gaze and pallid, sweat-slicked expression made it obvious he knew it, too. Carefully, he placed his hand over the injury on his belly, but didn't seem to dare to apply pressure, even though the blood was seeping through the material and slowly sokaing down his hip and thigh. Fletcher let his head drop into the wall and slowly, making quiet sounds of pain, slipped down until he huddled in the corner.

"What's next?" Mia asked, audibly trying to keep her voice from shaking and doing her best not to look at Fletcher for too long. Pearce tracked his attention over her, assessing her. Unlike her digital Lenses, she seemed to have mostly recovered from the taser attack and she had managed to come out of the fighting without anything more substantial than a slowly swelling cheek. He had't detected anything in her movement that suggested injury, so he assumed she was fine.

Pearce didn't answer at first, absent-mindedly he collapsed the baton and put it away, then checked his gun before holstering it. Instead he pulled out his phone and tapped on it.

"I'm trying to reach Dave," Pearce finally explained.

"You think he's still there?"

Pearce smirked just a little. "Yes, he sent me a text a little while ago."

"What's it say?"

"Nothing, it installed an app."

Mia frowned, hesitated and finally said, "Are you _sure_ it's Dave?"

Pearce chuckled and looked up at Mia.

"Pretty sure," he answered.

He could tell Mia disliked his dismissive tone. She wanted his reassurance, his confidence to feed off of. Perhaps she even wanted his compassion or at least pity for the BCP officer, still whimpering quietly to himself on the ground.

"A navigation app," he clarified as the pale blue overlay sprang up in his vision, tire tracks vanishing through the closed door of the elevator.

Mia pulled a face, gaze wandering around the small space.

"Are you _sure _it's…?" she repeated and trailed off at Pearce's failure to hide his amusement. She had some idea of what his network looked like, if she couldn't make an educated guess about his safeguards, he had no time to explain the intricacies to her. Though, he'd reluctantly admit Dave's skill level impressed him.

Pulling himself back to the present, he said, "We don't have a big window. BCP will know where we are when we get off. Expect more drones."

"Great," Mia muttered and rubbed her forehead where the taser had hit her.

"Just keep moving," he advised. "How many charges do you have?"

He'd seen her check them before, trying to avoid looking at Fletcher.

"Two dozen shots," she said. "Three full magazines."

She forced some shaky smile to put on and added, "That's a whole magazine better than you."

Because she'd been keeping her head down while he drew the heat, but he didn't point it out. It _was _the tactic he'd suggested earlier, after all. He knew what she was capable of, but he trusted himself more.

"Conserve the EMP," he said. When she was back in the forest outside Tech Meadows, the silent EMP charges would make it easier to shake her pursuers.

"Stay close," Pearce added as the elevator braked gently. He met Mia's gaze in the brief moment before the doors unlocked and slipped back.

Blume must have evacuated the building, because the room beyond was an empty hallway, corridors leading off to the left and right. The last bright rays of sunset streamed in through the large window panes. His Lens automatically adjusted to the new light level, but Mia groaned and he caught her squinting, but didn't give her more time.

Dave's path lead them straight across the hallway to a stairway, the hovering image of the tire tracks leading the way. Pearce scaled the steps, taking two or three at the same time, hoping to gain as much distance as possible before BCP could tag them, or at least before they could catch up to them.

Drones were active again, swarming them the moment they stepped off the elevator, but either the virus had messed them up worse than Pearce could've hoped or their own alteration to their programming was causing bugs in their software. Barely any of them fired their taser projectiles and when they did, there was usually a longer pause beforehand, presumably to allow the drone to calculate which body part they should target. Mostly, they were just _following _them, congealing behind and below when they ran up the next two floors.

Pearce shot the ones who got too close or threatened to get in their way, but he focussed on moving.

The tracks left the stairway and led into a corridor. Offices were split off by glass block walls, lining them on one side, windows overlooking the fence around Tech Meadows on the other side.

Ahead of them, the corridor changed into a skyway, winding away from the building they were in and towards another, further away from the fence and the dubious promise of escape.

He heard the bark of Mia's gun, quickly followed by the sound of two drones dropping to the ground. He didn't look, but Mia's snapped insult made it clear she got it covered, still holding a grudge over being tasered.

From the skyway, he could see the nearest buildings ahead and to the side of them. In the twilight, he saw dark shapes move into positions behind those windows and no doubt up along the roof, too, but they had another few moments before a sniper purge would be set up.

The tire tracks didn't cross the skyway, indeed, it appeared to nonsensically lead upward, through the glass ceiling and back to the building. Not bad, Pearce thought as he slowed down and pulled out his gun, it would take BCP a few more moments until the figured out where they'd gone.

He fired at the ceiling, shattered the glass and a hail of glittering shards dropped down. He holstered the gun to have both hands free and turned around.

"Mia! Moving up!"

She gave him a calculating look, from his invitingly folded hands up to the gaping hole in the ceiling, then seemed to give an inward shrug and took a running start and let herself be propelled upward. She caught the steel frame where the wall joined the ceiling and pulled herself up, quickly scrambled out of the way.

Pearce was right behind her. Without anyone to give him a leg-up, he'd simply retreated a few steps and took a short run-up, jumped and set his foot on the wall. He expected to slip on the smooth surface and did, lost a little momentum, but retained enough to launch himself high enough to get a hold of the beam running the outer edge of the skyway with one hand.

They were high enough up for the wind to nip at them both. Pearce felt the resistance as he pulled himself up and looked around for a moment. The trail still pointed them back to the building and up along its surface.

Though it looked smooth from below, up close, the large window panes were set in slightly protruding frames and the shutters offered enough handholds to make climbing feasible.

Dave's mapped path took them up two more stories, then around the corner of the building where they could climb up to an open balcony suspended out over the grass leading to the fence. The trail ended among tables and chairs.

Gunfire could be heard from inside the cafeteria, muzzle flashes of at least three different guns, bright in the gloom of the deserted space. A lanky shadow moved swiftly, aimed behind him and shot, then twisted around and fired at the glass front to clear the path. He crossed outside and slowed down.

Mia tensed, ready to go for her gun, but Pearce recognised Dave and when he didn't react, Mia relaxed slightly behind him. Walking towards each other, a momentarily casual stride in the middle of all this, they stopped in in the middle of the balcony.

Dave looked battered, blood running down his left arm and over the SMG he held. Dark marks were just visible on his neck, they looked like smudges in the twilight, but were most likely from someone trying to choke him. Dressed only in jeans and T-shirt, no doubt the rest of him was in no better shape. He held himself straight, with shoulders hanging a little, but more a sign of exhaustion than injury.

"You're slower than I thought," Dave greeted them.

"You're more _alive _than I thought," Mia muttered.

Dave bared his teeth at her in a slow grin. "Rome wasn't built in a day," he assured her.

Dave glanced over his shoulder and pointed along the balcony with his gun. "You can get to the fence from that corner. It's…"

Pearce caught the movement behind Dave, barely more than a shift in the shadows, but it was more than enough warning to grip Dave's arm and twist him around before bullets impacted Pearce's back.

They dropped to the floor as shots ripped the windows apart and shattered the furniture all around them. Pearce had Dave half buried under him, sharing the protection of his bulletproof clothes.

Pearce spotted Mia scrambling back to the corner of the balcony, where the wall offered just enough room for cover. There wasn't enough space for three people and Pearce had no intention of staying out in the open like this. The opening barrage would be over any moment and they needed to be much better positioned by then.

Keeping himself between the BCP gunmen and Dave, Pearce manoeuvred them to the other end of the balcony. He used the chance to get a better look at the interior, looking for a path to close the gap to the enemy, but he could immediately tell that he'd have to rely on speed, trust the meta-material to take the worst of it and hope none of these shooters were lucky or had the time to aim.

From her corner, Mia had crouched down and began to return fire. Unlike the BCP, she was relying on short, quick bursts, taking the time to pick a target.

The BCP officers were slowly advancing into the room, protected by the suppressing fire of their bullets.

Dave edged down and shifted to the edge of the wall, brought his gun up and returned fire, giving Pearce the chance to lean over him and fire standing.

"How many?" Pearce asked, picking off the officers as fast as he could.

Dave snorted a mirthless laugh. "All?"

He took the time to glance over his shoulder and Pearce followed the direction of his gaze to the nearest building. Snipers would be in position soon and they had no cover at all from that direction.

"You had a plan," Pearce said.

"Yeah, I _had_," Dave replied. "But you were too slow."

A BCP officer nearly made it outside, two more right behind. Pearce aimed low and fired at the first man's knees, pulling the gun in motion with the running man, until the bullets battering the sensitive joint made themselves felt and he stumbled, trying to stop his fall by rolling awkwardly. It brought him to the edge of the balcony, close enough to take aim at Pearce and Dave, but before he could get his bearing enough, a bullet tore through his head.

The two BCP officers behind him scattered, one towards Mia, the other towards the two men. Pearce whipped his gun back up and shot, a burst into the closest man's neck and another at the hands of the other, Mia's shot finished him off.

"Plan B?" Pearce asked.

"Do I look like I have a surplus of contingencies?" Dave snapped back. At some point, he'd taken a grazing shot on his left arm, a new wound to bleed down and make his grip on his gun slippery.

Pearce took the time to regard him, snapping his gaze back and forth between Dave and their attackers, and making sure Mia didn't get overwhelmed. Then he looked over the ceiling of the cafeteria for the drone bulbs, spotted three of them.

Dave had almost certainly hacked the drones to make them remain dormant, though it was possible Blume had withdrawn them from the fight to save valuable property, especially since the drones weren't proving as effective as Blume's engineers had no doubt hoped. With any luck, there were more drones in adjoining rooms, but if Blume were replacing stationary cameras with them, it was a good bet.

Pearce laughed a little, entertained for a moment the thought that he might not sound entirely sane and Dave spared him a questioning look.

"Well, lucky for us, I do," Pearce said, transferred the gun into his left hand so he could drop his hand into his pocket for his phone, thumbed on it and called Mia.

Across the length of the balcony she sent him a look as she picked up.

_"What?" _

"When the shooting stops, you come over here, you fire the rope gun for the fence and go."

_"Why would the shooting stop?" _

Pearce gave her a quick, toothy grin. "Because 11.7 percent of the drones will explode."

Dave shot him a glance and muttered something inaudible, but didn't waste more time. Dead BCP officers were beginning to pile up on the threshold to the balcony, though most of the injured ones had withdrawn, creating some extra confusion for their colleagues.

"You realise your odds, right?" Dave asked from below, a sick amusement alight in his eyes.

"Yeah," Pearce merely shrugged and pulled back a little further into the corner as he scrolled through the settings of his phone, activating the virus and scanning his surrounding. Dave made a good point, of course. He'd calculated with at least a quarter of the drones getting infected and even then, he'd never had a handle on the actual distribution. All infected drones could be underground somewhere, or in far-away buildings where the chaos their explosion would cause was useless to them.

"And?" he asked as he lowered the phone and edged forward.

"Nothing," Dave chuckled, leaned out of cover and fired. "As in 'here goes nothing', of course."

Pearce shook his head, unwilling to let himself be distracted now, glanced at his phone, then flicked his thumb over the button without any decorum.

The effect was slightly delayed, as the data transfer took a little time through the old WSN technology he'd hi-jacked for his purposes. This way, he didn't have to transmit the signal across all of Tech Meadows — and give Blume a chance to jam it — but the signal would jump from drone to drone, even the non-infected ones would transmit it, due to an exploit in their standard port setting T-Bone had discovered while working on Rose.

One of the drones in the cafeteria exploded in a sharp snap of electricity, blue-white flames licking along the ceiling before the drone dropped to the ground where it continued to burn hotly, causing black smoke to rise from the smouldering ground. More explosions could be heard from further inside. Right above them, a window blew out and rained tiny shards over them.

Mia had jump-started when the first drone blew up and skittered into Pearce's and Dave's corner of the balcony as black smoke began to fill the cafeteria and waft out. For the moment, the shooting had indeed stopped.

She wasted no time on talking, pulled out the rope gun and fired across to the fence. Another explosion happened somewhere below, followed by several smaller ones, the drone must have set off other things, just as Pearce had hoped. From the corner of his eyes, he saw several floors of another building suddenly go dark.

Mia secured the other end of the rope, briefly tested it, then climbed up to the balustrade, where she stopped.

"Go," Pearce snapped, scanning the rooftops. His tone pushed Mia out to the rope, giving him a long look, clearly wanting to say something — or wanting _him _to say something, but an enterprising BCP officer rolled onto the balcony and opened fired at their corner before Pearce had time to react.

The bullets impacted his chest and arm before he leapt at the man, not wasting time on aiming his gun or drawing that baton. He kicked the man's gun out of his hands, snapped down and his elbow in his face. Instead of futile holding on to the gun, the BCP officer simply let go and bent his upper body back. He failed to avoid Pearce's blow, but it didn't hit him with full force. The man rolled back and tried to regain his feet, caught Pearce's arm and the uppercut he'd thrown. Pearce stepped in close and smacked his head down, breaking the man's nose. The BCP officer was dazed for only a second, but it was enough for Pearce to get a good hold on him, tightened it and with a hard wrench, broke his neck and drop him.

Ready for more, Pearce peered into the smoke, but for the moment, there was nothing there. Looking up, Mia had finally got the hint and was already halfway across the rope.

"Mr. Vigilante!" Dave called and his attention finally dropped to Dave, watching him struggle to stand. Most of the bullets had hit Pearce without doing much damage, but Dave had been right next to him in the narrow corner. At a glance, Pearce spotted the bloodied holes in Dave's shirt, he counted three and a fourth which had ripped out a chunk of his arm, judging by the rivulet of blood running down. All three would be lethal without help, Pearce could tell and by the look in Dave's face, he knew it, too. By all accounts, he shouldn't even be standing.

"You know who Emily Knight is?" Dave asked with preternatural calm, grinning through bloodied teeth.

"Head of BCP," Pearce answered, tilted his head to survey the area without leaving Dave or the smoke-filled cafeteria out of sight. Every so often, small explosions still went off in the distance, lights randomly flickering out all across Tech Meadows, thin lines of smoke emerging from broken windows. The wind picked them up, but instead of dispersing the smoke, it covered the area with a fog like gossamer.

A bullet ripped into the concrete by Dave's head and both men flinched down, barely wasted a glance in the direction it had come from. The snipers were finally in position, no doubt fighting through the confusion of the exploding drones. Pearce spotted Mia, dropping herself over the fence and into the treacherous safety of the forest beyond. If she had any sense, she'd figure out she had nothing to gain by sticking around until Pearce joined her, but he didn't have time to tell her as much.

Pearce and Dave pressed themselves against the balcony's balustrade, though at best it made the snipers' aim difficult, the thin layer wasn't going to offer any protection whatsoever. He couldn't escape the way Mia had, he'd be too exposed on the rope, even with the bulletproof shirt and moving quickly.

Awkwardly, with just one good arm left, Dave clamped his gun under his arm, fingered for his phone and tapped on it with only a quick glance down. Instantly, Pearce received a new message from him.

"I got the key to her Papavero Concept for you," Dave said. "Have fun."

"All I got to do is get there," Pearce remarked.

Rather than pocket the phone, Dave simply dropped it, carefully shifted the gun back into his hand and raised it a little, making him look almost battle ready.

"Oh please, don't disappoint me now, Mr. Vigilante," Dave said in what was neither quite a sneer, nor quite a cackle. Pain creased his face as he moved forward a little, though tried to keep his head below the balustrade. "Just don't be slow this time," Dave added.

Pearce hesitated, considered making a run for the rope and the fence again, but decided against it. He stood a better chance if he climbed down the side of the building, sticking to the shadows, while Dave drew the BCP's attention and fire. He had a small window of confusion to work with, unreliable lighting in the encroaching darkness and a fast getaway car waiting for him.

He nodded, gave Dave a quick pat on the shoulder, but said nothing. He _had _nothing to give and Dave certainly didn't want or need a halfhearted pep talk when there wasn't time for one.

Pearce slunk along the outside of the balcony, hopefully out of sight of the sniper, found the darkest spot he could before he peered over the side and down, looking over the side of the building. It was very much the same as he'd come with Mia before, though climbing down would be harder in many ways than up or across.

He looked back at Dave, perched behind the balustrade, breathing hard but clearly ready, sick glow in his eyes and at least, Pearce thought, they both understood what it meant and why it was there. He caught Dave's gaze, held it and nodded again.

Without waiting for confirmation, Pearce gripped the side of the balcony's balustrade and levered himself up. He heard the sniper shots behind him, snapping for where Dave would have stood up. Just a second, before Dave rushed inside, hidden by the shadows of the darkened room and the slowly dispersing smoke. It would take him out of the snipers' range and right into however many BCP officers were in position, waiting for just such a move.

Clinging to the wall in the shadow, guessing his footholds in the darkness more than he saw them, Pearce heard the shooting take up again, the noise muffled through the growing distance. Pearce couldn't stop his mind from identifying the different guns, noting the chatter of the BCP SMGs, like the one Dave was using and different sounds of various handguns as they were brought into play.

He reached the ground. Above him, the gunfire had already stopped.

* * *

_End of _Gunmetal Sky – Part 2_

* * *

**Relevant Terms:**

**WSN (**Wireless sensor network): limited range networks.

**Papavero Concept **is a sports car I just invented. Pick your favourite fast car, add ten years of development and enjoy.

* * *

**Revised on 19/Nov/2016**


	71. Gunmetal Sky - Part 3

**Aiden's gun **isn't actually specified and I'm afraid I'm not as consistent about it as I'd like. So instead of trawling through the previous chapters (I'm lazy like that), here's an explanation that plugs the potential plotholes: It's a next-gen model of the auto-6 with a suppressor. I calculated with twelve shots per magazine (making it an auto-12, if you want to be precise).

* * *

**_Gunmetal Sky — Part 3**

* * *

Pearce crouched on top of an awning. In the dark, the buildings of Tech Meadows' sweeping shapes protruded from the ground like dinosaur skeletons, white and reflective where the lamps or a fire traced their outline, providing ample shadows for him to hide in.

He'd capitalised on the BCP's confusion after reaching solid ground and covered more of Tech Meadows than he could have hoped to, most of it even at a flat out run. But it had revealed several things, all of which were on their own ticking clock.

Blume's surveillance was still not running or at least still not able to identify or track him.

BCP was not prepared for the kind of assault and intrusion he'd subjected them to.

They did get a lot of security personnel on the ground quickly, but much of their forces had been focussed underground and Wyland's last stand had redirected their bulk in the wrong area as well.

But when BCP _did _start to reorganise, they managed to lock down the area a lot tighter than that. Pearce suspected some hidden genius had been involved in planning the overall layout of Tech Meadows. Its open spaces and convenient hiding places were more concentrated at the centre, but the closer to its outer edge he got, the more unexpected choke-points he encountered. Either because buildings were set too close together or because flower beds and lawn were open enough to monitor by few BCP officers stationed at strategic points.

Other units of BCP officers were quickly establishing a search pattern on the grounds, designed to hem him in, no matter where he'd gone to ground. Evading these units had forced him up on the awning, which he'd used to run the length of the building it was attached to.

It had started to rain earlier, just a soft drizzle, but enough to make the steel and glass under his feet treacherous and uncertain. He'd considered going further up, along the side of the building where even trained people often forgot to look, but the rain made the idea unappealing. It wouldn't help him much, anyway. Without access to the underground structure, he'd just be stuck on top of a building.

Slowly, he edged forward until he was close to where the awning ended, hung on steel wires traversing his vision. Ahead of him, he saw the large, square shape of the car park that had replaced most of the original buildings of Blume HQ and below him, two BCP officers stood between portable barricades, occasionally turning to survey all directions.

"Do we even know what's happening?" the woman asked, she was standing almost directly below Pearce.

Her colleague chortled. "It's probably just a drill," he said, tapped a quick rhythm on top of the barricade as he strolled by.

"You think? Even the explosions? There was definitely a shooting over at the VR building. That was _never _just a drill."

Her colleague waved his hands in the air. "Fuck if I know," he said. "VR's on the other end, so I don't think we'll be seeing a lot of action over her. Just the same boring, endless nightsh-…"

With the low snap of a suppressor, a bullet punched through his forehead, jerking his head back sharply before he collapsed, never getting a chance for the stunned expression on his face to even fade.

His colleague reacted on training alone, dropped into a defensive stance and going for her gun before the events had even properly registered, she sent a quick glance darting around and took one thoughtless step towards the dead man. Well out from under the awning, just as Pearce had hoped she would.

He leapt from the edge and dropped on her, tore her to the ground and knocked the gun out of her hand, kept her pinned with his weight and knocked the baton against her throat before he yanked it back with full force. She struggled, panicked, ineffectively clawing at the baton at her throat, shifting her body in an attempt to dislodge him.

Pearce fisted a hand into her hair and yanked her head back, realised the baton from her throat, twisted it around and hammered the handle into her temple several times until she finally went limp.

Both bodies were hidden by the barricade, for the patrols, it'd look like the officers had left their position. It was likely someone would come to investigate, or their radio silence would draw attention, but before Pearce could jump back to his feet, bright white light flooded his vision and made him drop back into a crouch, drawing back towards the building to orient himself and wait for his vision to adjust.

Blume had fired what seemed to be flares into the air all across Tech Meadows. Bright spheres, shivering just a little as they hung suspended in the air. Pearce watched them for a long moment, narrowed gaze against their glare. Not flares, he corrected himself. Probably drones. Rose and the security drones lacked a feature like this, but it made sense for Blume to design them for different tasks. They hadn't seen drones like this in action while staking out the place, but perhaps it was an emergency feature, or they were prototypes, which would account for how long it had taken Blume to bring them into play.

Slipping from shadow to shadow was no longer an option and his time was running out until stationary surveillance would be able to pick up on his location. BCP would be able to overwhelm him quickly, even if he made himself a moving target. He slipped back to the BCP officer he'd shot, sized him up for a moment, then bent down to strip him of the pale coat he wore against the rain, Blume's logo splashed across the back. Thin and rubbery, the light colour would be useless for camouflage, but with everything illuminated, hiding in plain sight was the only option he had left.

The coat didn't fit too well, but it would do. He straightened up as he shrugged into it, reassessed the situation around him, than stepped past the barricade and onto the paved path leading to the car park.

He paced himself, carefully, to vaguely match the gait of the patrolling BCP officers, feeling the time tick away at the back of his head. He was perfectly exposed like this, out in the open and every step he took on the path took him further away from cover. Any of the nearby rooftops could have snipers on them, any second RealMe's or even Profiler's error message could resolve and reveal his real name.

His instincts told him to run. It wasn't that far, even at a slow jog, he would only take a few minutes until he was at the car park.

The car park was locked down tight, more portable barricades set up around the glass front of the stairway and doors and even at a glance, he spotted two dozen BCP officers circling the large building with doubtlessly more inside. He slowed to a saunter, followed the outline of the path as it turned away from the car park and led into a canopied pavilion, where he stopped, leaned into a steel beam with one shoulder.

Picking up his phone, he scanned the car park. He ran a search for open ports and frequencies, but Blume had locked their digital world down just as tight as the real one. Movement caught his attention and he snapped his head around to watch a group of BCP units turn a corner and head for the pavilion.

Too many to take them all out without drawing attention, but perhaps the time for sneaking around was gone anyway. He needed to break through to the car park, scatter the BCP officers there.

In the last few moments before the BCP patrol was too close, he opened the app Wyland had sent with the car key. As one of the most modern cars on the market, the Concept had software to match and Wyland had unlocked it all. The app told him exactly where the car was parked and after a tap, even calculated the path for him, he didn't transfer it to the Lens, he didn't need the distraction.

There was too much open space on the way to the car park, too many patrols about to dodge them and even if he somehow could get past them, he still had to get into the car park, where too many people were stationed. He needed to get them moving, draw them away and maybe he could be fast enough to sneak in before they regrouped.

He drew his gun, checked the ammo and suppressed a grimace. Twenty shots total, not nearly enough even if he got close enough to take some of them out with the baton. He hefted the gun, finger gently tracing the outline of the trigger guard as he pushed himself off from the pillar he'd been leaning against.

Deliberately, he stepped out in the open, let his gaze travel around the landscape surrounding the pavilion, loosely mapping a path he could take, but not overtly concerned with it. He'd have to adapt on the run, anyway.

Something about his posture must have rattled the group of BCP personnel, first slowing down for a step or two, then speeding up, edging their guns forward a little as they got closer, Pearce's shoddy disguise unravelling.

Free of the pillar, Pearce raised his gun and fired two shots, each ripping through a head. The shock scattered the last member of unit, a moment when he focussed on his fallen colleagues and Pearce ducked back into the pavilion and vaulted over the side before the answering fire ripped into the glass and wood structure.

Below the pavilion, a paved plaza was interspersed by benches and large, concrete planters stretching all the way to a hedge and a row of trees. Beyond was the less appealing bulk of a warehouse.

Pearce dropped to a crouch behind the planters, kept on the move. Bullets hit the planters' stone, caused dust and small shards to fly, ripped through leaves and flower petals, but he didn't slow down or return fire. He threw himself around a corner and glanced up carefully. He saw BCP officers carefully advance on him, the two patrols he had seen and the people from a barricade outside a building's front entrance.

Someone shouted and broke into a run, clearly intending to make the cover of the planters under covering fire. Sneering, Pearce gauged the man's speed and angle, let him come close, then deliberately leaned into the bullets, felt them impact his side, but not hard enough to ruin the shot completely. His bullet tore open the running man's neck and he went down drawing a spray of blood with him.

Pearce ducked back into cover before the enemy bullets could adjust. His side ached where the bullets had hit, made him briefly wonder just how much the meta-material would still be able to take.

Keeping low, he crossed to behind another planter, stealing a quick look at the barricade by the car park entrance. Further away than the others, they had realised what was happening and most BCP from the ground would be converging on his position by now, he might have a handful of minutes before there were too many of them. With any luck, it'd even take some heat off Mia, making it easier for her to lose them in the woods.

Behind him, the first BCP officers had reached the planters, he saw their heads bobbing over the edges as they tried to sneak around him. Pearce picked the feeble cover of a bench to duck behind, pick out his targets and shot when someone's head came up a little too far. Another man had his face shattered just as he left cover.

A hail of bullets tore the bench to shards and Pearce drew back around the side of another planter, getting within range of the hedge. It was too high to leap over and too dense to force through, making him snarl. From the distance, he'd assumed he could get through.

"I see him!" someone shouted, stupidly giving their position away and sparing Pearce the effort of locating them. Somewhere behind and to the left. Pearce snapped around, put his back to the concrete outline of a planter and saw someone lean out of cover just ahead. Another BCP officer was just getting in position above and behind the first.

Pearce shot the first man's head, but the second one had a better reaction time, the bullet only hit his shoulder when he had the right instinct of getting up instead of down, trusting his body armour. Pearce agreed, without armour, he'd never have got this far, but even he still sometimes had to fight the instinct of seeking cover at the exclusion of all else. Pearce snapped his gun up and his shot hit the grip or the hands of the BCP officer, smacking the weapon out of his hand, buying Pearce the opportunity to leap at him and fold his hand over the BCP officer's head and smash it into the metal armrest of a bench. Pearce clawed into the man's hair for a better grip, smashed him down again for good measure and left him there.

He ran along the side of the hedge, making several yards before the next shots took aim at him, bit through the hedge and nipped at his heels. He jumped at the edge of a planter, used it to propel himself higher and over the hedge, where he rolled back to his feet. Bullets penetrated the hedge, but he was momentarily out of sight.

Several van were parked along the side of a ramp and closed gate. One van was parked right next to it, its back open and stacks of pallets inside, the lockdown must have hit right in the middle of loading or unloading. Pearce circled the van and slowed down behind its front wheel.

The asphalt street ran the length of the warehouse. Ahead of him, it lead to a barricaded and closed gatehouse, right next to the car park.

The display in his left Lens flashed a notification.

[Open port found: Landrock Motors eRelegator II (Firmware )]

[Connect?]

He allowed himself a little smile even as the first bullet snapped into the van. He leaned around the front, watched the BCP officers advancing on him from the car park, leaving the barricades and doors under supervision of only a few people. Pearce aimed and fired, hit one man in the shoulder, uselessly, but it was enough to remind the others of their instincts and they scattered, heading for cover instead of pressing on. He fired again, this time punching through a man's skull. The BCP officer nearest him stopped, bent down to grip him and drag him with him. Pearce flexed his trigger finger away, watched the man's head leave his scope. He ejected the spent magazine, snapped the last one in and took a breath as he slipped his thumb over the button on his phone to take control over the eRelegator.

Some noise alerted him to something behind and he brought his attention around just in time to see someone drop behind a just unloaded pallet and somebody else stuck the muzzle of their gun past the rear of the van.

Pearce ran the length of the van back, kicked the muzzle out of range, swung around the corner and brought his gun into the man's face, fired. He heard the gunshot from the side, where he saw more BCP officers come around the hedge, felt the heat and the sting on his shoulder, but paid it no attention. The BCP officer had stepped out from behind the pallet, gun trained right at Pearce's face, but he had underestimated Pearce's speed. Dropping his own gun, Pearce lunged for the man's hand around his gun, forced both back and around. The position brought their faces close, Pearce saw the shock when the man realised what it meant when he wasn't strong enough to stop Pearce form pointing his own gun against the side of his head. Pearce slid his fingers down over the trigger, circumventing whatever smart gun system the BCP was using.

Another snot snarled past Pearce, then a volley hit his back, harder each time, almost driving the air form his lungs in the time it took to pick up his gun at a run and return to the side of the van, temporarily shielded from the advancing security personnel.

Using the overrides in his phone, Pearce started the van's engine and mapped out a route for its autopilot feature, then set it in motion and on a collision course with the glass front of the car park door. He ran alongside it, keeping it carefully between him and most of the BCP officers, though the moment the van had started moving, he was opening himself up to attack from behind as they followed. Only the haphazard placement of the already unloaded pallets prevented straight shots at him.

He kept pace with the van, but he had enough time to fire back, at least slow down their advance. Aimed for their heads and faces, wasting no bullets on elaborate stunts like shooting their guns out of their hands or making them stumble by firing at their legs.

With his other hand, he worked on his phone, called on the Concept's software, told it to unlock and unpark itself, so he'd only need to dive in once he got to it.

By the car park, the BCP people by the barricades had realised the van was heading straight at them. They thought they could stop it with concerted fire, but that was the beauty of electric cars, apart from a little oil, there was very little likely to explode and even if they got lucky and damaged the motor, the van had enough speed and momentum to smash into them anyway.

A sharp pain cut across the back of his calf, he felt the wetness glueing his trousers to his leg before the pain registered and he missed a step, nearly lost the van from his side. The next steps shot more pain up his leg, made it harder to keep up with the van, but the car park was close now.

He ignored the pain, but let himself fall back a little from the van, using the corner of the car park to cover at least one side. He dragged his finger over the dial on his phone and the van sped up on the last few yards.

Standing still allowed the world to sharpen into slower, clearer relief, allowing him to pick out the targets he wanted to make an example of. He'd never unscrewed the suppressor from his gun, the noise reduction was unnecessary, but the lower recoil meant he didn't need so much time to bring his gun around and line up the next shot. His focus was almost more on the bullets, counting them off as he fired.

The van smashed into the barricade and scattered the pieces everywhere, then hit the glass structure of the stairway with unmitigated speed, glass shattered and the metal bent out of shape as the van sheared into the wall beyond. Someone screamed and as Pearce threw himself around the corner, he saw someone crushed between the wall and the debris. Shards fell like rain and the motor of the van snarled as it encountered resistance, unable to go to the speed its software demanded.

Still with shots dogging him, Pearce pushed through the webwork of broken metal and glass to the door leading into the car park. The door swung loosely closed behind, shuddering as bullets hit it.

Pearce switched on the navigation, followed the pale line splashed on his Lens. It lead him past several rows of parked cars and the low, thick pillars of concrete holding up the bulk of the car park.

He heard the hiss of the door as the BCP filed into the garage. He pressed his back to a pillar and glanced around, watching for a moment as they slowly fanned out from the door, looking for him. Dropping back to his knees, Pearce kept the parked cars between him and his pursuers, picked his way through them as quietly as he could.

The posture put more strain on his leg and shoulder, slowed him down more than he'd have liked. Bunkering down by a car, he slipped his hand along his calf, feeling out the extend of the damage. It was still bleeding, must have torn some muscles to make moving as painful as it did. He ripped the scarf from his neck and slung it around the injury, pulled it tight as new pain spiked up through his leg, but the bandage offered some faint support and relief.

Scrambling back to his feet, he hurried along the aisle, following the path. He could probably get the Concept to come to him, too, but he'd prefer to not expose the car to too much gunfire, he needed it functional.

A few other open ports flared up on his Lens, cars with software he had backdoors into, but a quick check showed they were all much higher up. The VIPs parked on ground level, and none of their cars offered the same access. He wondered how Wyland had managed to clone Emily Knight's car key, but he had a feeling Wyland had had the same instinct as T-Bone: just amass an arsenal as varied as you could and then see what left the biggest dent in your enemy's armour.

Hope Blume's well insured, Pearce thought as a particularly concerted effort to take him down destroyed at least two cars and badly damaged a third as he dove behind it. He rolled back to his feet, vaulted over the hood of the next car and ran the length of it. Just ahead, the Concept was parked, sensing the proximity of the key, it opened the door on the driver's side, but Pearce found the right button and made the car open the door on the passenger side, started the engine and made it roll forward slowly.

For a heartbeat's duration, Pearce braced himself, caught his breathing and let the strained muscles in his legs release slightly, preparing to propel himself into a run.

He heard the shouting as the BCP officers reacquired their target, followed by the gunfire eating into the asphalt just behind him. He dove into the car and hit the acceleration at the same time. The car shot forward smoothly, closed the doors automatically.

Bullets hit the Concept, but apparently, being head of security at Blume meant you drove a bulletproof car, because the thin, anti-scratch coating most new cars had wouldn't stand up to bullets like this.

Without any further instructions, the car continued to accelerate for a moment, but then slowed down in order not to crash into the wall. Pearce scrambled into the driver's seat, accepted the car's request to connect with his Lenses. The dashboard inside the car dimmed as the information was displayed on the Lens, speed and proximity warnings, surround view of the car where there used to be only mirrors.

A sign flared up as he put his hands on the wheel.

[Caution: Manual Control ON]

He pulled the wheel around, took the car around the gentle slope leading down to the outer gate. It was barricaded, much like it had been from the other side, though manned markedly less thickly. They were ready for him, but they didn't expect the gate to pick up the identifier of Knight's car and open without any input of his own. Solid steel slid out of his way and the barricade and the BCP personnel had the choice between throwing themselves out of his way or be mowed down as the sleek Concept shot past them and finally out into the open just outside Blume's prestigious Tech Meadows.

The winding, somewhat forlorn road that used to lead up to Blume HQ had been expanded to account for the increased traffic brought on by Blume's growth. There was talk to run an L line all the way out here, but Chicago, Pawnee and Blume were still squabbling over who'd foot most of the bill.

However, the terrain still dictated the route, slow bents to account for the rocky underground and the view through the windows was as spectacular as it had always been, Chicago's skyline reflected shimmering on the water, seemingly pushed further away by thin fog and soft rain washing out its brilliant colours.

Connecting to the car's interface had blown his phone wide open for a hacker attack, but there was nothing on it beyond what he knew he needed, no information that'd help Blume or the cops track T-Bone or Mia, but he couldn't contact them.

The empty road pulled away under the car, nearly vibrationless at the speed it was going, soundless with its electric motor, comforting simplicity in its HUD design. He felt a little sorry that he wouldn't get to keep the car, or ever acquire another one. He rubbed his hand over his forehead before he realised he'd been doing it, felt the way his attention started to wander in the sudden quietness. His leg was still bleeding and whatever bruises his back and shoulders had sustained were starting to pulse through him despite the human-engineered seat of the expensive car.

The sudden quiet was seductive, brought on by the perfect car and the fact that he'd managed to get out of Blume HQ alive, an outcome that had barely featured in even the best-case scenarios he'd ran in his head. Like Wyland, he'd been prepared to go down, though for widely different reasons than the Dave had had. Fatigue crept up on him, the dull ache of pain sapping his strength and ability to concentrate.

The throbbing of a helicopter made itself heard first, ripped through his awareness and dragged his senses back to the razor edge. A bright white searchlight cut across the mountains, right before the helicopter itself came into view. A bent allowed him to see the road ahead and the police barricade, long enough for him to see the spike strips laid out across the road, glinting viciously in the blue signal lights of the police cruisers parked across the road behind them. More roadblocks were visible just beyond, flickering blue light ghosting throughout Pawnee just ahead.

Pearce reached for the phone, quickly going through the controls of the car, dismissing warnings as he disabled most of its assistance and safety features. The last thing he needed was his car trying to be smarter than him during dicey manoeuvres.

He tossed the phone into the passenger seat when he was through, next to his nearly empty gun, and took both hands to the wheel, flexing his fingers in mixed apprehension and anticipation, holding straight at the cops. He observed as they took a disbelieving step back from their barrier, not sure yet if it was time for them to run. At the very last moment, Pearce took the car to the right, into the softened dirt of a slope, the speed pushing him scratching past the police cruiser, punching it aside and into the scattering cops.

Even so, it was a tight fit and he nearly misjudged the slope at the side of the road, almost tipping the car over and its wheels lost contact with the ground, then bounced unevenly back on the road, fishtailing for a moment until Pearce could steady it.

The cops on the next roadblock were ready for him, in cover behind the doors of their cars, opening fire at the shielded Concept, the impacts rattling off the finish like hail. Pearce sheared past them to the right again, ploughed down a ramshackle wooden fence and had to manoeuvre the car through tightly planted trees. Rather than push back through to the main road, he took the narrow road winding up the mountains and further into Pawnee's badly-kept underbelly.

It took a few minutes and several sharp turns before the cops caught up with him, but the helicopter stayed with him throughout. A few times he managed to lose it behind some rocky outcropping somewhere in the landscape, but it always found him again. Police cruisers overtaking him by chasing down parallel roads, then cutting across to cut him off, but the Concept easily outclassed them whenever he hit even a short stretch of straight road and his control of it was far better than cops, he spotted getting lost behind him as they missed a corner. All he had to do was reach the open road, he could shake even the helicopter if he could bring the car's speed to bear.

He took a turn into a narrow street, spotted the dead-end right away, but instead of slowing down, he hits the gas more, pushing the car through the sludge that made the high-performance tyres struggle for a moment, until he got the car back to speed. In front of him, several layers of corrugated sheet iron served as roof to a shed. He doubted the makeshift construction would withstand the car, but all he needed was a little boost to clear the low wall at end of the street.

The car shook, resisted, and the metal screamed, broke away under him, but the car's speed made it overshoot, only one back tyre scraping over the wall. The car dropped hard to the ground, tyres kicking up smoke even on the wet underground before they regain their traction and Pearce steadied the car back on the asphalt, accelerating away from the cops whose cars' safety features almost certainly prevented all of them from following.

The helicopter was still above him, but the blue flaring lights and the police cruisers they belonged to were lost somewhere behind him as he cleared the last row of houses and the road opened up as it left he town behind.

Ahead, more lights announced the last police barricade, this one with all the held-up traffic lined up behind it, bright points of headlights, neatly stacked. The other side of the road was empty.

This time, Pearce misjudged the angle with which he hit the cruiser, it snagged on his car, as the cop in the car made his car make a sharp lurch backward, almost knocking the Concept over the spikes. The Concept rotated nearly a half-circle, Pearce punched in the reverse, hit the gas, than flipped the wheel so the car swung back around smoothly.

A warning flared in his Lens, someone was trying to access the car's software, sending override commands, but he'd been waiting for that for a while now. His phone automatically installed its own firewall, but he doubted it would hold out for very long.

He considered trying to outrun his pursuers, he was on the open road now, where he'd wanted to be, but he probably didn't have enough time. Instead, he took the Concept to a dirt road on the next turn, barely wide enough for a car, making the Concept struggle again, slowed him down and the police re-appeared behind him.

He followed the road for several turns until he spotted the train-tracks cutting across his path just ahead, an unguarded crossing, no toys for him to spring here. He hit the middle of the crossing, braked sharply to make the car swivel on the spot and he could drive down the tracks.

The warning flared up again and he cursed. He wasn't gaining enough distance to ditch the car, the cops still too close on him and the damn helicopter searchlight streaking over him, though trees were beginning to block it out. All he needed was a few minutes, _half _a minute would do and he could get lost in the woods, on foot, the cops wouldn't be able to find him, the terrain was too rough for them to effectively block it off and he knew how to keep his head down.

At the next crossing, he took the car back to the road for a short stretch and around a corner onto another dirt path leading into the woods. He took several more sharp turns, putting a little more distance between himself and his pursuers and for a second, his surrounding fell into darkness, the blue flares of the police growing distant and he couldn't see the helicopter anymore.

The car went dead and the HUD projection in his Lens vanished.

"Oh, fuck," he snarled, surprised at how rough his voice sounded in the sudden quietness. He'd almost had it. It had almost been enough.

In a surge of anger, he punched the wheel, but all that did was making it look up and there was no resistance under the gas and brake anymore. Speed and momentum kept the car on track for an endless second, before the dirt path turned away to the left under him. The car hit the side of a tree sharply, normally the impact would've caused the airbags to fire, but he'd turned these off earlier.

As if being tossed between them, the car hit several more tree, each spinning it into a new angle before it hit another, boxing it down a slope. It still had enough speed to shoot across the road there, mow over the tall board of a hiking map, then collide head first with an overgrown boulder protruding from the undergrowth. Front and sides dented and dirtied, the wrecked Concept came to a standstill, lay motionless like a carcass in the darkness.

The helicopter searchlight cut across the wreck, shivered and circled around it, as if it wanted to keep it pinned there until the police arrived, their sirens and lights already drawing close.

The door was stuck, locked or just jammed, Pearce couldn't tell and didn't care. Vertigo washing over him, it took a little for his coordination to allow him to pull himself from the seat and gave the window a kick. It didn't budge, despite the myriad tiny cracks running across it.

Momentarily too spent to continue, Pearce let his head hang back, resting with his shoulders on the passenger seat until he'd scraped together some remnant willpower. Deep down in the footwell, he spotted his gun and reached for it. Shot the three remaining bullets at the window, then tried to kick it out again.

At last, the window gave in and Pearce heaved himself through, dropped inelegantly on the ground just outside the car and sucked in a deep breath of cool air to clear his head. It wasted time he didn't have, blinded by the helicopter searchlight and the blue police signal lights it joined.

The police cruisers stopped in a tight half-circle on the muddy ground around the crashed car. Doors were thrown open and cops piled out, anxiety masquerading as caution as they slowly closed in.

Pearce rolled up into a crouching position, one leg out and ready to spring. He'd flicked the baton out with the same movement, only distantly aware how lucky he was to still have it at all.

From the helicopter, a sniper's laser-sight traced a red dot from his chest over his face from above. Knowing, or at least assuming, his body armour would deflect most bullets, even the cops' assault rifles would need a moment to penetrate the layer, unless they hit some of the weakened areas by luck or intention. If he didn't let the pain stop him, he could cross the open space to the cops. Counting them off in that first instant, he watched a fifth and sixth police car stop behind the others, but he could take six people. Or eight. Or however many there were. All he needed was a momentary edge.

"DROP YOUR WEAPON!"

Against the glaring lights of the police cruisers, it was hard to figure out which of the officers had shouted the order, but Pearce turned his gaze in the direction anyway, slowly, bore through the brightness until his eyes adjusted and he could make a reasonable guess who it had been and fix on him. Then, a shudder of the helicopter dragged the laser sight through his eye and his night vision blanked out on one side.

"DROP YOUR WEAPON _NOW!" _

He felt the familiar weight of the baton in his hand, knew he'd only need seconds to get there, but they were seconds he didn't have. He'd lost them somewhere during the chase, or earlier than that. Maybe he hadn't even had them coming in.

He hadn't expected how much it would take to ease that grip, relax each small muscle one after the other until the baton could slip heavily from his hand. It thudded to the soft ground, buried itself into the mud with its weight, still within temptingly easy reach.

"GET ON THE GROUND!"

The voice was wavering just a little, trying to sound threatening and overdoing it, closer to hysterics than intimidation. Slowly, Pearce pulled his leg in until he was kneeling, raised his hands, palms out and empty so as not to trigger a reaction in the over-nervous cops.

"ON THE FUCKING GROUND!"

Pearce took a breath, he wasn't sure himself why he needed it. A moment to taunt them, to see if he could push them over the edge by simply doing nothing. He collected himself, needed the respite to get his body to comply, pulled too tense and too ready to fight to simply lay down when ordered to.

He moved as glacially as he could, forcing his enemies to make the call and stand by it afterwards. He wasn't sure what the aftermath of his death would be for the gunman who'd downed him. Praise or persecution, both were equally possible, most likely something of both, too. Either way, he didn't envy them the burden. Bringing his left hand down to support himself as he lowered himself to lay flat on the ground, his hands resting loosely by his side.

The ground was soft against his cheek, cooler than he had expected, he exhaled and let the tension slowly bleed away into the wet ground. He could still see the laser sight hovering over his head and face, but for a moment, everything was still.

In fact, it took the cops an entire minute until they broke their position and advanced on him. Their shadows passed over him and the barrel of a gun dug into the back of his skull. After a moment, a second barrel pushed over the edge of his collar and came to rest on his neck. He tried not to strain. In his field of vision, he saw the boot of one of the two cops, close to his hand.

"Don't move," someone growled over him, jabbed with the gun for emphasis. A third cop stepped past him, leaned down and a moment later his searching hands pressed down between his shoulder blades, then patted their way up his sleeves, taking his time to check for hidden weapons.

"You're under fucking arrest," the cop said as he closed his hand on Pearce's wrist and pulled his arm back. Unlike the two with their guns to his head or whoever had shouted before, this one sounded a little calmer and more controlled, resisted the urge to yank on Pearce's arms and inflict a little extra discomfort just because he could. The handcuffs snapped closed. It wasn't the sound Pearce remembered from his youth, this was a smooth, whispering sound and he felt the metal draw close to his wrists without constricting the blood-flow.

With Pearce's hands secure, the cop started to pat down Pearce's sides, reached into the pockets of the rubber coat, then his touch slipped down his legs, probing the edges of his boots before he withdraw. There were no weapons, Pearce had left the gun and his phone in the car and the Lens had gone dark. He guessed the phone had been damaged in the crash.

The gun barrels were withdrawn from his head and neck and their owners stepped back while the one who'd cuffed him said, "Alright, get up."

The cop gripped his arm and pulled him up, gave Pearce a slight shove to get him walking. Upright again, Pearce saw that too many of the cops had drawn close to him, building an untidy cluster from all sides, making sure he had nowhere to run even if he somehow got loose.

It was quiet on the street, almost tranquil. The rain had slowed to a lazy drizzle, hissing as it hit the flames licking up from the wrecked Papavero Concept. Blue lights from the police cruiser brushed over the scene, cooly unimpressed. The laser sights were gone, but the helicopter search continued to paint bright swathes of light across the street as Pearce was brought to a police cruiser, a hand made him bow his head as he was pushed into the back seat.

* * *

_End of _Gunmetal Sky – Part 3_

* * *

**Revised on 19/Nov/2016**


	72. Gunmetal Sky: Command & Control

[summary: know when you're beaten]

**_Gunmetal Sky: Command &amp; Control**

* * *

Only half a year earlier, Pawnee had been gifted with a brand-new police station, Blume's state of the art installation, new cars, new guns, new interface with ctOS, new everything.

CPD Lieutenant John Yamada stepped somewhat reluctantly out of his car and squinted up at the building. It stood out in the rural quaintness of Pawnee like a crashed UFO, bright smooth white wall and the futuristic design that was all the rage up at Tech Meadows. Privately, he wasn't quite sure if it was sending the right signal to the public about police independence, but perhaps if it bothered you, you'd have moved to the Offliners' trailer park by now.

The only reason he was in Pawnee that night was because he was, technically, on vacation. He'd rented a small cabin on the water, fishing and relaxing with his sons, but of course, the head of Taskforce Bloodhound had to be contactable 24/7, just in case their target was having a busy weekend. Though, if he was perfectly honest, he'd taken several minutes of deep-thinking until he actually started believing the police officer who'd called him to say they'd arrested Aiden Pearce and were bringing him in. It seemed like a joke any way he looked at it.

The police station was alight. An emergency call from Blume HQ and an ensuing car chase had congealed at least a dozen squad cars around the station and while it was new and shiny, it wasn't that big. The cruisers were parked up and down the road, some still with their signal lights on and their occupants hanging around in clusters, as if they'd forgotten how to behave. Pawnee residents had already started to appear, too, hanging around a little further away but with their phones ready and Yamada wouldn't be surprised if the pictures and videos they took were already all over the internet. He was surprised the press wasn't there, yet, but they'd come soon. He'd called in his team, they would be here soon enough and while he was convinced they were as dumbfounded as he was, they would be able to keep order out here.

Yamada was greeted by the police chief, given a quick summary of what had already gone done and he listened quietly, storing the information away for later. He asked to see the footage of Pearce's processing, not quite sure what he'd been expecting to see.

The good cop in him was proud of his colleagues' professionalism when none of them made an inappropriate comment or tried to use their sudden power to humiliate Pearce. Yamada's more cynic side merely assumed that Pearce, even now, seemed too dangerously incalculable to taunt in this way.

In the pervasive absence of reliable information, Bloodhound had sunk tremendous energy into what could only be described into accumulating trivia. Whether Pearce was right or left-handed, what car brands he preferred, what emotional attachment he felt to the brown jacket he often wore — and whether its loss was somehow meaningful. At some point, Yamada, then a new member in the group, had wondered when they would break out the Ouija boards and crystal skulls.

Though, while Yamada considered this behaviour silly and unproductive, he couldn't completely blame his colleagues for their helplessness. ctOS was their weakness. Normally, the system was the best tool in fighting crime, but in Pearce's case, the over-reliance on it made it nearly impossible to catch him. CPD's strategies, their information infrastructure, their response tactics, it was all ctOS dependant. They lacked the tools to work without it and while Bloodhound's budget was generous, it didn't allow them to recreate their own system from scratch.

Under Yamada's predecessor, the more esoteric approaches had been phased out, though their more useful results still lingered in the profiles they'd constructed on Pearce. He _was _right-handed, for one, but he'd acquired apt proficiency with his left. It wasn't the kind of information that'd track him down, or keep him pinned if they did, but it might come in handy if an agent actually did get close enough. No one ever had, though, and Yamada sometimes wondered if that wasn't just an insult in itself. Pearce had never seemed to consider Bloodhound a serious threat.

"You ready?" the police chief asked as he stepped in to Yamada's side, looking through the one-way mirror into the interrogation room.

The room seemed to be cast from one, smooth pale material that made stainless steel look tacky and old-fashioned. It wasn't just sound-proof, it shielded from all wireless signals and the one-way mirror was also one-way bulletproof, turning the room not only into a perfect prison, but also a perfect trap. Set seamlessly into the walls and ceiling were a dozen different monitoring devises, leaving no corner untouched, no shadow unsupervised. And the people placed on the wrong side of the solid table would find their last, involuntary muscle tremor analysed and interpreted, recorded for the court to draw their conclusions.

After being secured on hands and feet, Aiden Pearce hadn't moved much. He'd shifted in his seat, looking for a slightly more comfortable position for his battered body. Gently, he'd increased the pull on the cuffs on his hands and feet, testing their reliability, but even the finest instruments hadn't been able to catch any disappointment at the resilience of his bonds.

A notification flared up on the tablet, drawing his attention for the second he needed to dismiss it. Just his fridge, reminding him to stock up on asparagus.

"Sure," Yamada said, shrugging as he left. "Why not?"

The door to the interrogation room swung nearly soundlessly on some unseen mechanism and Pearce tilted his head just a little to better regard him. Yamada wondered what conclusion Pearce would draw about him, if he'd seem unassuming and bookish with his lack of Lenses and the pair of black-rimmed glasses on his nose. Yamada set the sleek tablet on the table in front of him. Ignored Pearce in favour of watching the tablet automatically connect to the station's network.

Yamada sat down, facing Pearce and pretended to regard him him thoroughly for the first time.

After his arrest, Pearce had been stripped of clothes and searched for weapons he'd been given grey scrubs to wear, the only clothing Pawnee's police station had available. He'd been herded through a mandatory shower and his hair was still damp. A paramedic had stitched, glued and bandaged his obvious injuries, but he still looked worn and battered, bruises showing on his collarbone and exposed arms, one side of his face was beginning to swell and a bad gash on the side of his neck was still seeping blood and Yamada had seen earlier a similar injury at his leg was beginning to make the cloth stick to it. He might have more severe internal injuries, but his getaway car had had a reinforced frame and while its exterior was mangled, the cabin had remained largely intact.

Pearce had had no weapons, but they had retrieved an empty gun and a broken phone from the crashed car. It seemed like a sad little list of belongings, disproportionate to the man's place in the public consciousness, but Yamada had seen these cases and it made a sick sort of sense. If you couldn't hold on to anything you were left standing there with your hands empty. And that was Pearce, though it would take a while before the truth of it got through Pearce's skull, if indeed it ever did.

"I'm Lieutenant John Yamada," he introduced himself, voice carefully neutral. "But I imagine you know that."

He paused, looked Pearce over again.

Yamada said, "Do you require additional medical assistance?"

Pearce didn't answer, barely even moved and his face was passively indifferent. He might even be dazed, too confused to even recognise his need for help or unable to say as much, but his gaze was perfectly focussed on Yamada, waiting for his next move.

Yamada resettled himself in his seat, not intending to offer a stage for Pearce's tough guy act.

"For the protocols," Yamada said. "I'm John Yamada, team leader of Taskforce Bloodhound. You've been arrested under suspicion of multiple homicides, aggravated assault, grand theft auto, compromising of information networks, identity theft, various acts of terrorism…" he took a deep breath and glanced down at his tablet, a finger slowly scrolled downward.

"And I see no one's read you your rights," Yamada arched his brows.

He looked up at Pearce, folded his hands in front of him and leaned forward a little.

"That means anything you say now, it's going to be inadmissible. Just between you and me, you know?"

He shook his head in honest bewilderment. "You have no idea… when I took this post, my predecessor, he left me a very long list of questions for you, but, you know what? It all just boils down to 'why?'. Why the fuck would you do anything of what you do? Why?"

Pearce didn't answer, just looked back at Yamada calmly, not bored exactly, but not particularly engaged either.

When the silence stretched, Yamada spread his hands out in front of him, leaned forward to fix Pearce a little sharper.

"Come on, what do you have to lose?" he asked. "I'm not the enemy. Whoever hurt you and set you on this path, it's probably long gone. It's long over. So why not just _try _to give an answer? Because, do you know what I think? I think you _can't_. I think there's no answer. You don't have any fucking idea why you do what you do."

When Pearce continued to show no reaction, Yamada huffed to himself and said, "It's been more than ten years. I bet it feels longer to you. Like a lifetime."

He rubbed the side of his nose, pushed himself off the table and back in the chair, watching Pearce flawlessly disinterested exterior.

"Alright," Yamada finally said, stared at his tablet and dismissed another notification from his fridge. He matched Pearce's bored demeanour. "You have the right to remain silent…"

As he recited the Miranda speech on autopilot, he used the chance to study Pearce again, watching for even a hint of interest in the proceedings. He'd expected Pearce to be like stone under pressure, it wasn't exactly in the profiles, but it was everywhere between the lines. He wondered what he should do about it, wryly aware that the officers who hadn't read him his rights probably knew it wouldn't make a difference.

"A lifetime," Yamada picked up again and caught Pearce's gaze wandering down to his tablet briefly.

"Always on the run, always in a chase maybe. Never close to anyone, never trusting anyone. Do you realise how hard it was to find people associated with you? And none of them had anything truly useful to say. Just… abandoned safe-houses and dead-drop cloud storage and throwaway emails. What a terrible way to live."

He paused again, "Aren't you glad it's over?" He laughed a little at himself, added, "Maybe? Just a little? Maybe it's time to kick back and relax?"

Yamada made a small gesture with his hand. "Man in his fifties, it can't be easy to keep up. How much longer do you think you have?"

He was about to say more when another notification on the tablet attracted his attention and he frowned, briefly distracted, then dismissed the interruption and looked back at Pearce.

"You know, we tried to built a profile on you without anything you might have fed us, it's a lot of piecemeal. Your father in Belfast, your immigration files, your SAT score, your original DMV application. We even tracked the copy of an old lease, co-signed by a girl. We tracked her, too. You want to know what she had to say?"

Pearce moved his head, but the gesture was so faint, it barely registered beyond the faint assumption that Pearce didn't want his neck to tense up.

"No, then," Yamada said, shrugging. "I guess you could track her just as easily."

He tapped on the tablet, his finger hoovered a little, then he tapped again. "What about your sister? She lives in Aurora now, that's not so far away. When we went looking for her, we were thinking Alaska, Mexico, Europe… but she's only in Aurora. An hour's drive from here, but I don't think you're seeing her regularly."

The frown slipped back on his face when he glanced at the tablet again, this time it lingered. He cast a skeptical look at Pearce, whose posture and expression gave nothing away. If he went and checked the recordings, perhaps Yamada would be able to spot a pattern in Pearce minuscule movements, but then again, maybe he wouldn't.

Yamada sat up a little straighter, narrowed his eyes at Pearce and said, "You're going to keep this up, aren't you? You'll go behind bars for the rest of your life and you'll never say a word."

Some of the more extreme political elements would regularly bring discussion of the death penalty back and using Pearce's seemly unstoppable rampage was one of the arguments they were using. Just locking someone away, feeding them, providing for them, wasn't an appropriate punishment for the sheer amount of damage Pearce — and people like him — were inflicting on society. It wasn't to happen, though, at least not because of Pearce. Yamada considered bringing it up anyway, just to see if there'd be a reaction, but he dismissed the thought. Pearce knew. In fact, Pearce probably knew far too many things.

"I'm wondering," Yamada said conversationally. "We dug up some files from your old high school, you were such a terrible student, but you don't look like someone without ambition. And you don't seem like someone without brains, either. So what was that about? Or is that it? The source of your… uh, discontent? Bitterness over your wasted chances? A lack of acknowledgement?"

He pinned Pearce with a hard stare. "Or am I giving you too much credit and you're just another psychopath who needs to have his itch scratched regularly?"

Pearce tilted his head and Yamada was so used to Pearce's imperturbable silence, the small gesture startled him, put his mind into a brief spin, wondering what of all the things he'd said had actually touched a nerve.

What Pearce had heard, a scant half second before it happened, was someone opening the door. Yamada glanced over his shoulder to see a puzzled-looking police officer stick his head in. With the door open, noise spilled into the interrogation room, advertising the amount of commotion outside. It had already been bad when Yamada had come in, with so many police officers on-site, with BCP on the way out from Tech Meadows and all the usual wreckage from Pawnee, a certain level of chaos was to be expected, but it seemed to reach a much more critical level. He even heard car alarms howling, though they didn't seem very close.

"Uh, sir, there's… a… problem," the police officer said and blinked when his phone buzzed. In irritation, he fished his phone from his pocket, swiped without looking and put it away again.

It clicked through Yamada's head very slowly, the way you watched an avalanche build up in front of you. Glacial and enormous and although you were still perfectly safe in this instant in time, there was nothing you could do to stop it from crashing over you.

He glanced at Pearce. He didn't know if he'd caught Pearce unawares, but there was no mistaking the hint of amusement in his face and a glint in his eyes.

Yamada's attention drifted over his tablet, just in time to see the newest notification fade. He looked back at the police officer.

"Are you getting notifications from your fridge, too?" Yamada asked seriously. Some small part of him realised how ludicrous the question must sound, but now? Here? In a room with _this _criminal?

"Uh, no," the police officer said. "It's my fitness tracker, but… that's it."

He looked pointedly at Pearce, but Yamada just motioned him on. Pearce already knew, Yamada could've reached out and touched that certainty, if he'd wanted to.

"Everything's going crazy," the officer said hesitated and shook his head. "You'll have to see it to believe it."

Yamada considered, digging a hard frown into Pearce's gaze. Whatever was out there, _in here _he had the answer, but he couldn't crack Pearce like that, he hadn't been making any headway in the few minutes he'd had the upper hand — or thought he had — Pearce was never going to give in when he was in charge. Yamada paused for a moment, realising that perhaps this was the way to break Pearce's silence. Instead of feeding into his stubbornness by trying to threaten or intimidate him, perhaps Pearce would react better to a show of submission, stroking his ego.

The officer still hovered in the doorway as Yamada hesitated, eager to put his theory to the test, but he'd have to put up a better show for Pearce anyway and the interruption could help him with that.

Yamada stood up quickly and hurried after the retreating police officer. Before the door fell closed, he made sure Pearce heard his order.

"Put him under watch, no one goes in, no one comes out, whatever else happens. Is that clear?"

The door fell closed quietly and Yamada followed the police officer to the front of the station. It took a moment for him to place the overall sense of anxiety and to differentiate the noise level from what you'd expect. Many police officers and staff were busy with their phones and tried somehow to appear as if they weren't. Every so often, music began to play and Yamada saw someone lunge for the device and switch it off. Someone ripped off her smart watch and toss it to her desk in frustration, just as Yamada passed, she brought a paperweight down on top of it, cursing. A small component of the cacophony went silent. Closer to the lobby, Yamada even saw a woman blush a bright scarlet when her phone started moaning, clearly playing some sort of porn.

The police officers pointed to the front door and Yamada stepped out to where he saw the police chief and a few others stand, each with the same posture of overwhelmed bewilderment.

He walked out into pandemonium. What inside the station had amounted to a mass malfunction of handheld smart devices was multiplied beyond anything Yamada had ever seen. He'd read about it, though, about the massive ctOS breakdown in 2012. Except, now it was one and half a decade later and there were impossibly more things to go high-wire. As, apparently, they were doing.

Pawnee was alight, all the houses he could see from the entrance of the police station revealed some flickering light, or weird sound. Music and fire alarms howling into the night, peeping phones and watches and arm bands. Parked cars with their engines turned on, music blaring, burglar alarms on full throttle.

Just across the station, someone's robotic vacuum cleaner had got through the door when the Haum system unlocked all doors and windows, sending the machine tumbling down the steps and it's owner hurrying after it.

The people who'd been standing around behind the police lines were occupied with their phones as well, more and more joining them as the people of Pawnee were roused by their technical devices going crazy.

As far as Yamada could see, all of Pawnee seemed affected, far beyond the direct surrounding of the police station itself, but it didn't take a genius to figure out what was going on.

"What the hell?" the police chief demanded and Yamada could do nothing but shrug helplessly.

"I… think we should wait until BCP gets here," he said and heard the police chief huff a little. BCP didn't have the best reputation among real cops, BCP got their noses in everything, always rubbed their authority into people's faces. As far as many cops were concerned, BCP was a bunch of amateurs, armed to the teeth, but too stupid to aim right.

"I know, I know," Yamada said placatingly. "But this really looks like a Blume problem to me."

"Yes, but…" the police chief started. "But guess who'll get to clean up the mess later."

He shouted a series of orders at the officers further down on the ground to clear the area and help people get to their cars to turn down the racket.

"The vigilante," the police chief said to Yamada. "He's the cause of this."

Yamada shook his head. "Indirectly, I'm sure."

He put his hand on the police chief's arm when he started to move away.

"It's obviously an attempt to spring Pearce," Yamada said, squeezing the police chief's arm a little for emphasis. "Whatever else happens, we need to keep the station secure. Don't let yourself or people get sidetracked too much."

The chief narrowed his eyes, but nodded earnestly. Yamada let go of him and turned back to the station.

"What are you going to do?"

"Lock myself in with Pearce and a shotgun," Yamada said and wasn't quite sure if he was joking or not. Before he had a chance to find out, however, something in the noise changed, a distant wave of shouting and Yamada turned back to the the street and watched as the crowd moved like water and opened the way for a heavy pick-up holding straight for the station with its headlight blinking on and off as if agitated. For an insane moment, Yamada was convinced the pickup would simply keep going, accelerate up the steps to the station's front door and smash into it with full force.

Yamada wasn't sure if the station was really solid or if it merely looked like it was and the pickup's dull growling revealed that it had a combustion motor and probably a large tank full of burnable gasoline to go with it. Someone could even have rigged it to blow the station to smithereens.

But the pickup simply stopped, driverless and ominous while the officers hurried to clear a larger space around it.

The pickup's engine's roared louder and it reversed suddenly, almost like making a jump, turned its wheels and suddenly sped forward, crashing into the parked police cruiser there. It reversed again and then drove in a sharp circle, just past the other parked cars and making the people ran out of its way.

More of the crowd was trying to gain some more distance, but from his slight vantage point, Yamada saw that curious onlookers further back were pushing forward. Pawnee was a small town, but it seemed like most of its inhabitants were out tonight. Somewhat less close to shock than the situation might actually warrant, Yamada spotted the sign on Jedediah's Bar light up, opening for business in the chaos.

The pickup had cleared the entire space in front of the station now, turned back around again, took a running-up and drove straight into a police-car, smashing it with its solid front benders.

"Someone get in that thing and shut it down," the police chief called, gestured for one of his officers, who nodded. Like advancing on a wild animal, the officers advanced on the car, but stopped abruptly, when the pickup reversed again and freed itself of the car stuck to its fenders. It turned back around and just as one of the officers got close to it, the pickup suddenly accelerated straight for the entrance of the station. Just like Yamada had pictured before, the pickup sped up, then braked at the last minute.

The chief, scurried away to the side like everyone else, shouted another order. But for Yamada, it all became background noise as a realisation stabbed through him like lightning strike. Feeling panic climb up his throat, Yamada threw himself around and ran through the station. The very last thing he saw outside was a second car beginning to box itself free of its parking lot.

Yamada got halfway through the station when the loud shattering announced that the pickup had actually smashed into the front of the station. He glanced back, saw the front of the pickup stuck through the destroyed entrance and watched it pull back and forth, as if trying to free itself and continue its rampage.

Yamada cursed, tore himself from the sight and fell into a flat ran on the last stretch to the interrogation room. The officer he'd ordered to stand watch was still there, although twitchy and confused, with his hand flexing to his gun at every new noise.

"What the hell is going on, sir?" he asked, but Yamada ignored him and unlocked the interrogation room, prepared for practically anything. He pushed through the door and stood frozen.

The scene hadn't changed. Pearce moved his head a little to regard him, but otherwise his posture was just as disinterestedly relaxed as it had been throughout their earlier talk. The tablet was exactly where he'd forgotten. Pearce's cuffs didn't give him enough room to reach across the table, but somehow it didn't count, because Yamada had left a hacker alone with a piece of equipment that connected automatically to the police station's network.

He studied Pearce's face, searched that carefully blank expression for anything at all, a hint of his thoughts or intention. The noises from outside and inside the station still crested up against him from behind, the same hellish racket it had been before. Shouldn't people have turned all their devices off by now? Why was it still going on?

He heard a strangled cry, close by and turned around, had time to see the slim shape appear in the doorway and realised it wasn't the police officer he'd left there, but his thoughts were wiped clean when a taser was pushed into his stomach. Twitching, he collapsed, struggled with holding on to his consciousness, but it didn't matter when his body might as well not be his own anymore. Before he could recover, he felt the plastic bit of a zip-tie around his wrists, before he was pulled clear of the door.

"Tablet," he heard Pearce say.

"Please give me the tablet, thanks for saving me," a woman's voice replied, adrenaline making her sound breathless and made the remark seem petty rather than humorous.

"Get the cop from outside," Pearce added.

She snorted a laugh, "Like anyone has time to look."

But from his position on the floor, Yamada heard the door move as she obeyed. With every breath he took, Yamada recovered a little better, hoisted himself up with a shoulder against the wall. He watched the unknown woman drag the police officer through the door and dump him, bound like Yamada and also struggling back from being tasered.

The woman wore a ski-mask, hiding most of her face and hair from sight. She kept herself positioned by the door with the taser in her hand and a gun holstered under her arm, a bag slung across her back.

"Hey, take your time," she said after a long minute of silence while Pearce focussed on the tablet.

"I thought they had no time to look."

"Yeah, but…" she stopped and said nothing.

Yamada saw no reason to try and shout uselessly into the insulation of the interrogation room, even if it wasn't so loud outside, it was unlikely anyone would hear and Pearce's friend was right, it would be some time before anyone had time to wonder where Yamada had gone or to check up on their prestigious detainee.

Yamada pushed himself a little further up on the wall, used his legs to help until he was seated with his back to it. He looked over the woman briefly, but fixed on Pearce.

"What are you even doing?" Yamada asked, knew he sounded tired. "What's the point?"

He expected Pearce to ignore him the way he'd done throughout, but Pearce actually looked up from the tablet, trained a thoughtful gaze on Yamada as if he seriously considered the question.

"We both know there isn't one, don't we?" Yamada insisted.

Yamada thought he should see something like triumph or smugness in Pearce's face, but it seemed unable to penetrate his affected indifference. Keeping his gaze on Yamada, Pearce slipped his finger over the tablet and the cuffs on his hands and feet opened, then smoothly retracted into the table and floor.

Despite himself, Yamada felt a surge of panic go through him. He knew Pearce didn't indulge in wanton slaughter, it wasn't his style, but Yamada had seen too many details about the people Pearce _did _kill. He knew what the vigilante could do to people he thought deserved it and it wasn't the kind of thing that helped you sleep at night. So while his rational mind told him Pearce wouldn't kill them, his gut still lurched at being dropped into an enclosure with an unshackled predator.

Pearce got up from the table, took the gun the woman held out to him, with the tablet still in his other hand. He stepped past Yamada on the way for the door. The other police officer made a strange move and for a panicked second Yamada was afraid the man would try something, kick or trip Pearce, but he must have realised how futile it'd be.

Unexpectedly, Pearce crouched down in front of Yamada, traced his gaze over him, lingered on the zip-ties before he pulled it back to his face.

"You wouldn't understand," Pearce said and keeping his gaze on Yamada again, slipped his finger over the tablet once more and the station plunged into darkness.

* * *

"How did you get in?" Pearce asked as he slipped after Mia into the darkened corridor.

"Fire exit on the first floor," Mia answered. "Knocked the alarm out with an EMP blast and Ray and Tobias are putting on one hell of a show outside."

The blackout wasn't really a blackout, Pearce hadn't been able to go deep enough into the system to even get at these controls. He'd merely used the tablet to access the Haum software that controlled the environmental settings and used it to simultaneously turn all the lights off. It wasn't going to last for very long and Yamada and the other cop weren't secured, either. But for the moment, Pearce and Mia could slip through the dark police station unobserved. The cops had too many things to occupy their attention, making them easy to avoid on the short trek upstairs and through another corridor until they spotted the glowing outline of the fire exit door.

The lights came back on, closely followed by shouting from below, but Mia didn't let herself be distracted, just raised the EMP gun and fired at the door, making the glow briefly disappear for the time they needed to slip through.

Mia slid down the stairs smoothly, but then waited as Pearce climbed the stairs.

"You hurt?" she asked concerned.

"Just tired of showing off," he said and picked up her arm, pulled her unresisting body in a circle to get at the backpack she wore, opened it and stashed the police tablet.

"What's our ride?"

"Dirt bike," Mia said, "Parked over there."

She pointed, then set out in the direction. Pearce only nodded, saying nothing.

The fire exit had led them to the back of the police station, where it was comparatively quiet. T-Bone and Frewer were trying to focus the cops' attention to the front, taking off the heat while Pearce and Mia slipped away, but the nearby houses were all lit and there were even people leaning out the open windows, some with their phones out to record the mayhem. None of them seemed to notice them or realise the significance.

It sounded like self-driving cars were still rampaging while every conceivable smart device was behaving as if possessed, adding to the noise of an increasingly agitated and confused crowd.

Mia led the way through a narrow path between two houses and to another road, where the bike was parked.

As they approached it, she said, "Don't even think about it. I rescued you, I'll drive."

Pearce chuckled a little, though the sound came off as a little stale. He said, "Made up your mind about spooning, did you."

"Haha," Mia intoned as she swung her leg over the bike, leaned forward to start the engine while Pearce got on the back and slung an arm around her waist.

The electric engine of the bike hummed quietly to itself as Mia accelerated down the road, then took a corner onto a dirk track leading away from the town of Pawnee and into the deep unrefined darkness of the undergrowth.

* * *

Things didn't calm down until Blume finally showed up. They drove down from Tech Meadows with three broadcast vans and presumably overrode any signal that was being sent to all the devices that had gone off the rocker. Yamada was leaning on the coffee vending machine when it happened and was surprised when the thing actually made him coffee instead of spewing it into his face.

For the moment, he listened to the hiss of hot liquid and let the rest of the chaos wash over him. He wasn't sure if he was luckier than his predecessors or even more jinxed then them. Although well-paid and well-equipped, Taskforce Bloodhound tended to be seen as a career dead-end. No matter what you did, you somehow never had any success to show for it. Usually, you didn't even have substantial results to put into your reports and files. And he, John Yamada, he'd been given the opportunity to actually interrogate Aiden Pearce and he'd blown it. He wasn't sure if it was his fault, but he probably couldn't salvage his reputation no matter how he tried to spin it.

He picked up the plastic cup and took a first sip, spared a wry thought at whoever had overseen the renovation of the police station and had made sure that somehow even the vending machine coffee tasted like coffee.

With that thought and the taste on his tongue, he watched as Emily Knight stepped past the ruined lobby and slowly strode towards him, looking around her and taking in the damage with a curious, detached look on her face.

Dark pantsuit, loosely fitting a lean body, hands tucked casually away in her pockets and eyes sharpened under their digital Lenses as she took everything in. You could work with Emily Knight, if you managed to stomach her overbearing attitude, her priorities and her unconventional concept of due process, but she wanted to solve problems before anything else. She dispensed ctOS privileges like the member of some ancient order of mystics. There were channels to go through, but to this day, Yamada was still unsure what the parameters were to make queries be answered comprehensively. Knight got that part down flawlessly and she showed the occasional soft spot when someone bought her a drink or told a good joke.

Tonight, Yamada stood in ground zero of the smoking debris Pearce had left the police station of Pawnee as and greeted her with wan smile and the coffee cup raised in weary salute.

She accepted it with a raised eyebrow, an amused quirk on her lips.

"You're smiling," Yamada said. "Is there anything here I've missed? Because none of this seems like a laughing matter to me."

"There's a pattern," she said. "A very interesting one. It's right in front of you, don't tell me you can't make it out."

Yamada watched her tap her phone and her focus drifted away from him as she concentrated on something the Lens was showing her, obvious she intended to leave him his space.

The calm after the storm was more draining in many ways than the chaos of before had been. For a moment, it was all that Yamada managed to see, surveying the space around him. A small, devastating force of nature had done this, it couldn't be just one man. Especially one who'd just been ran down in the street, crashed his car only to surrender to the police without further resistance. Pearce hadn't had the means to instigate any of it.

"Pearce had help," Yamada said.

"In our estimate, Pearce works with three to five people, all of a skill level comparable to his own. We assume there's some overlap in skills, but some of them will be complementing Pearce's own."

"Kenney."

The small, inevitable grimace anyone at Blume would pull whenever Kenney was brought up. Yamada was too tired to question the tiny spark of satisfaction it brought.

"One of them," Knight said with every attempt at an even tone. "Is almost certainly Raymond Kenney."

Yamada hated the way Knight just stared into space for several minutes without even so much as a nod or a remark. _Of course, _he knew she was reading something on her digital Lens, almost certainly something important to him, even, but it was still aggravating in its own way.

Besides, she was clearly setting this up as some great win and it really didn't look like it. Maybe it would've been, if she'd somehow managed to get her people down here some minutes earlier. Or, indeed, if they hadn't fucked up up in Tech Meadows to start with. Yamada bit the comment back, for the moment, he'd only use it she forced him to, otherwise, that argument was going to remain unused until he needed it.

Knight finally lowered her phone.

"I saw the bar is open. I'll buy you a drink," Knight said and started walking without making sure he followed.

Yamada took a quick swig off the coffee, gave an inward shrug and dropped it into the bin. If this was the only way to get anything straight out of her, he wasn't going to complain. The police chief and BCP had the situation under control and they didn't need him standing in the way while they tried to get a handle on the situation and where the cleanup should start.

The bar had turned into a central base for the onlookers, hanging around the front with their beers in hand, quite apparently enjoying the show from their vantage point. Though the bar hadn't been spared the general pandemonium and by the looks the owner had taken the hands-on approach in dealing with it. As Yamada's eyes adjusted to the dimly lit interior, he spotted the moose head on the floor, clearly dislodged from it's place on the wall and dumped there, its power-cord disconnected. As Yamada looked around, he spotted other, similarly unplugged or dissembled gadgets.

Knight turned from the bar with two bottles of beer and motioned at him with her head to a small, empty table further back.

"So you gonna enlighten me?" Yamada asked finally, leaned over his beer. It was even darker back here and he thought about how late it was and how tired he should be.

Knight smiled, shook her head, took a sip from her beer. "You're still not seeing it?" she asked in a mixture of honest surprise and smugness.

"Well, what I'm seeing is that every single fucking thing ever developed by _your _company went poltergeist on us, up to and including a goddamn pickup, which ploughed right into the police station. So yeah, I'm seeing that the vigilante is doing the exact same thing he's ever done, just… bigger and louder and he's brought friends this time."

"I admit, he did some damage tonight," she said, but her smile stayed firmly in place. "I'll also mention that he's done us a service, even if that wasn't his intention. We gathered a wealth of data about possible security gaps and exploits. He didn't reach the server room, which we're certain was his ultimate goal. He seems to have stolen some software components, but nothing that'd compromise our new operating systems."

Yamada took another sip, looked around and squinted at the window, hoping to make out some details out there, but it was too smudged.

"What about all the hacks?" he asked. "It looks like practically _everything _was compromised."

Knight kept smiling. "Everything," she agreed. "Except ctOS itself. The police station already runs on our new software to which neither Pearce nor Kenney have any access. That was what they were after and they failed. What happened here is due to security holes in third party apps. In fact, it was everyone's third party apps. We have a rigorous vetting process for apps, but ultimately, their developers are responsible for their work, not Blume."

"Your PR department probably won't let anyone forget that, ever."

She laughed a little, "That's not my concern."

Her expression darkened a little and she took a slow breath. "I admit, tonight could have gone better. We didn't expect the kind of concerted assault Pearce mounted against us tonight and we were slow to react. If we'd been able to keep the pressure on, Pearce — and Kenney — would be in custody and stay there."

"Hear hear," Yamada joked, the thin layer of alcohol was beginning to make things seem slightly more amusing, perhaps Knight had warmed up a little before coming out and that's why she seemed to be talking all this so casually.

"So let me get this," Yamada said. "Pearce lost. Your new stuff rolls out, Pearce is gone from ctOS? Sounds too good to be true."

"You'll see it. Next year, he's caught, he has nowhere to hide."

It was Yamada's turn to laugh. "Yeah, well, no, that's not happening."

"I'm a realist, John," Knight said. "I'm not one for reciting the company propaganda to appeal to my bosses. They wouldn't pay me if I did. What I've seen about the future, Pearce is done. So's Kenney, so's every dumb little hacker. You can trust me on this. In fact, I'm a little surprised Pearce didn't take the chance to go down fighting. Others did, after all."

Yamada shook his head, smirked into his beer before he took a sip. "You're probably right about the Blume stuff, but I've been studying Pearce for a long time. Mind you, I don't get, like, two thirds of what he's about, but suicide by cop… or BCP… isn't his style at all."

Knight quirked her eyebrow again, doubtfully.

Yamada continued, "No, for real. He likes to think he's the smart one, sees himself as a survivor. If the times have changed, he'll want to change with them, not drown in the tide. He's not like one of those old people who get set in their ways and never stop complaining about how things used to be better. Pearce adapts."

"He _cannot_ adapt_,_" Knight insisted. "No adaption will save him."

Yamada chuckled. "Yeah, but… we haven't caught him and everything you've said, if that's true — and you sound convincing — then tonight was our last chance to catch him."

"He'll go to ground," Knight concluded, expression pensive as she considered what Yamada was telling her.

"Yes," Yamada confirmed. "None of us won, as these things go. We didn't catch him, you didn't get to shoot him in the head…"

"We would _never_…"

Yamada just waved her off. "He didn't win, either. But it's over anyway. All that's left is cleanup."

* * *

Although the police fanned out comparatively quickly, the deep dark woods surrounding Pawnee with their often badly kept dirt paths were impossible to cover at the speed the police would have needed to move.

Mia took a roundabout route, designed to take them as far away from Pawnee and as deep into the woods as quickly as possible. Only when the darkness was thick and unbroken by helicopter search lights did she finally navigate her way back to a paved road and to the Pawnee Bridge, which shortened the time from Pawnee to the outskirts of Parker Square considerably.

The slow summer rain continued, but gradually, clouds boiled up and began to hide the starry sky, otherwise beautifully visible above the landscape around Pawnee. Sometimes, lightning would flare across the sky, brighten the clouds, but it took a long time until its accompanying thunder made itself heard.

"Let's hope we'll get there dry!" Mia shouted against the wind, but though Pearce's grip around her was solid, he himself had grown steadily quieter. Of course, riding a bike didn't exactly lend itself to conversation, even a quiet one like this, but there was something heavy in Pearce's silence and Mia felt compelled to try to alleviate it. She wondered how injured he really was, but couldn't well stop to press him for details he wouldn't give her anyway.

An hours drive out from Pawnee, Mia pulled into the parking lot of a roadside Quinkie's. Deep in the night, there was only a little traffic, most of it clustered around the restaurant itself, but the parking lot was large with more cars parked at irregular intervals. The Blume broadcast van at the corner furthest from it hadn't attracted much interest. These vans usually carried engineers around who'd fix up the countless ctOS boxes, or served as a mobile broadcast tower to cover outages.

A little closer look might have revealed that the Blume colours and logo were a little off and had a hand-painted quality to them. Mia stopped the bike next to it and killed the engine, straightened and felt Pearce pull away from behind her instantly.

T-Bone opened the doors at the back of the van, spread his arms out and jumped down, grinning broadly.

"Aaaand we're complete again! Good to have you back!" he announced and looked for a moment like he was going to hug Pearce, but he dropped his hands instead to look back at Frewer.

"That was a perfect storm we kicked up for you! Pity you couldn't see it!" he said, brought his head around and tilted it to the side, making his dreads drape over his shoulder. "Now, I know you didn't get in the server room, but it's a learning curve and we're just getting started. Frewer and I, we've already packed up the trailer park, and we're ready to move…"

"No," Pearce said, shaking his head in what might be disbelieve.

"What do you mean, no?" T-Bone frowned, expression already markedly darkened. "And the first thing out of your mouth should've been a heartfelt 'thank you'." He paused for a moment, dismissed it with a quick smile. "Or you've thanked Mia already. Any_fucking_hoodle…"

"You're not listening."

By increment, the animation bled out of T-Bone, froze him to the spot and swivelled him around to face Pearce. He gestured with a pointed finger. "I'm getting tired of this discussion."

"Well," Pearce rasped. "That's probably the only thing we agree on."

"You realise what it means, you walking out now?" T-Bone demanded. "It means it was for nothing. The sacrifices, the fights, the blood, you dragging me out of Pawnee fourteen years ago. Just throw it away. Let Blume have their way, fucking us all over until the fucking heat death of the universe."

Pearce was silent, gaze digging into T-Bone's. "You never stop bringing up my body count. Well, tonight's all yours. Wyland, the security personnel, the people in Pawnee. All on you."

"Ah ah ah," T-Bone made, sharply. "That's not how it is, buddy."

"I told you it wouldn't work."

"I told _you _going in now was the wrong time to move!"

"It was a fucking act of fucking desperation!" Pearce snapped, taking a crucial half-step forward, narrowly breaching T-Bone's personal space. "And it went down exactly as I predicted."

And then, he stepped back again, body still tense but pretending to relax.

Like Frewer, still poised inside the van, Mia had been too caught up in the scene to even dismount the bike, she still sat there, head craned around to watch the two hackers shout at each other. Tensed up beyond her realisation, Mia almost flinched when Pearce suddenly turned to her.

"Give me the police tablet and your phone," he said, clearly trying to keep his voice even.

Hastily, Mia fumbled both from her bag and handed them over. Pearce took them with a curt nod, glanced up from the devices at her and added, "You should go home, tonight would be best. I'll make sure to get you your money in the next few days."

She blinked slowly, trying to get everything that was happening into order so she could figure out what she even thought about it. "I don't care about the money," she said, a little tonelessly, gaze drifting past Pearce to T-Bone and Frewer.

T-Bone crossed his arms over his chest, glowering at Pearce, but the thoughts were clearly racing inside his head, trying to wring some sort of success out of it. He had plan, Mia knew, there hadn't been time to talk about the details, but T-Bone had considered the possibility that tonight turned into a failure and he'd already been looking at the next moves.

"Your call," Pearce only shrugged. As he turned away, she saw him booting up the phone and the tablet, beginning to transfer her hacking apps to the tablet.

"Aiden," T-Bone said reasonable. "What you're gonna do now?"

At first, Aiden seemed like he wouldn't respond at all. He'd started wandering away from them, along the parked cars, scanning them. With some latency, T-Bone and the others slowly gravitated after him.

"I got a good identity set up," Pearce said. "I own a bit of land, couple of hours out, no one's going to look there."

For a second, he looked up, "It's what you should do, too."

"What about Blume? ctOS? Motherfucking bellwether?"

"Your crusade, not mine," Pearce shrugged.

T-Bone huffed. "Far be it from me to demand any nobles goals from you, but this… it's going to affect _everyone._"

Pearce looked at him again, then back at the tablet. "What's next? Are you going to bring up my family?"

"You know I wouldn't," T-Bone said earnestly. "But, yes! It'll take their freedoms, too."

Pearce stopped, finally faced T-Bone again and said, "And there's nothing I can do."

He flipped his finger over a button on Mia's phone and a nearby car's lights flared up as it unlocked. T-Bone followed him to the car, then overtook Pearce to block his access to the door, forcing Pearce to acknowledge him.

"Go back to California," Pearce said, surprisingly mildly in contrast to the potentially devastating heat of the argument before.

"Jesus," T-Bone snorted. "Your thick skull's the reason for most of my grey hairs."

But he stepped aside to let Pearce get into the car. He tapped on the phone one last time, then focussed on the tablet and used it to start the car's engine.

"Mia," he said and held her phone out to her. Quietly, she took it, twisted it in her hand awkwardly, looking for something to do with herself in the charged atmosphere.

He hadn't held her gaze, just dropped it away and back to the tablet and the car, as if nothing of this mattered or affected him. He bumped the door into T-Bone's legs, albeit gently, to make him move completely out of the way.

"I'll send you what I find on the tablet," Pearce said. "But it's probably best if we didn't stay in contact."

"There's no way you'll get off my Christmas card list," T-Bone said and while the humour was thin, but real. Even Pearce couldn't quite suppress the twitching in the corners of his lips, but it was too dark and gone too fast to built anything on.

One by one, they left the parking lot.

Pearce first, then Mia hitched a ride with T-Bone and Frewer, because the rain kicked up several degrees of magnitude. They drove her to the next L-station and didn't speak of anything all the way there.

* * *

_End of _Gunmetal Sky: Command &amp; Control_

* * *

**Reference:** "Command &amp; control" is the infrastructure used to control a zombie computer network.

The rampaging cars owe more to Daniel Suarez's "Daemon" than to WD 2's ability to remote control them.

* * *

Walkthroughs of **Watch_Dogs 2 **are on youtube since at least Saturday night. The good news is, the ending is so meaningless, it doesn't contradict anything I've written. Apart from that, Watch_Dogs 2 is crap far beyond my ability to express or critique or even comprehend. There's nothing here for me. Even hating on it seems just… absurd.

**Brilliancy** should be considered on hiatus.

Thank you for reading and supporting me throughout 300k+ words of fanfic.

* * *

**Revised on 19/Nov/2016**


	73. Perfect Play - Part 1

**Warning: **Cliffhanger.

**NOTE: **Due to the complexity of the plot and number of original characters, it is suggested that you read Femme Fatale first. Nevertheless...

**Recap:** In the events of Femme Fatale Aiden tried to dismantle the Chicago South Club by forcing its de-facto leader, Heather Quinn, to turn crown witness. However, Heather manipulated Aiden into killing her husband and thus allowing her to fully take over the Club. She tried to recruit Aiden and when it didn't work, abducted and tortured him. Aiden was rescued by Jordi and his protégé, Mia Perez.

**Other Recurring/Notable Characters:**

Kenneth Quinn: Heather's husband and Lucky's second son

Carl Herrick: former spec ops agent, running the muscle for the Club

Iain Darcy: Heather's secretary and lover

* * *

[summary: chicago's underworld is a non-perfect information game]

[takes place in march 2019]

**_Perfect Play – Part 1**

* * *

Heather was the motionless heart of the hurricane while security cleared the terrace of the Merlaut. The fire-alarm howled behind her, loud and biting, tinnitus right inside her head. From the distance, she heard the sirens from the cops and the firefighters, but for the moment, the terrace became deserted, preternaturally quiet despite the racket just out of reach.

"Mrs Quinn?" someone asked, voice she recognised, one of the Club enforcers she'd ordered to bolster security for the duration of the clean energy conference held in her hotel. They weren't supposed to be up here, they were detailed to keep an eye on the garage and basement storage rooms, away from the guests and the press.

She held out a hand at the enforcer without looking at him. He had enough sense not to question her, he hesitated but then drew back. She even caught his questioning look at the man sitting calmly in an alcove by the balustrade.

As the enforcer lingered by the door, watching over Heather as she walked across the empty terrace, using the moment it took to reach him to assemble the pieces.

It had been over a year since EADA Ramsey had set out on his witch-hunt for her, egged on by Aiden Pearce himself. Ramsey had arrested her, had put her on trial and tried to get her behind bars with everything he'd discovered — or made to discover — but while the trial had been a mess, the evidence hadn't been enough to convict and she'd walked, as she'd always known she would. The damage to her organisation and her public image was much harder to repair.

Ramsey and Pearce had punched holes in every branch of her business, girls, drugs, art, whatever she was dealing in, it had all been dragged into the open. The gangs were fighting each other harder than ever, while also trying to nibble away at her territory. At least they weren't organised in the way they had been under the joint rule of Lucky Quinn and Iraq, giving her enough room to manoeuvre and secure her borders.

For the legal businesses, associating with her had been poison, but one carefully orchestrated step at a time, the trial and the dirty laundry it had aired dropped away into the past. She still had money and reach, and gradually, she'd taken back control of her own brand.

She'd had to lobby long and hard until she'd got a prestigious clean energy conference into one of her hotels. Clean energy was the latest trend, pushed for by Blume and backed by city officials who much preferred Chicago making headlines about its technological advancement over its crime statistics. The latest push was to replace combustion engine cars with electric ones all across the city, something Blume was only too happy about, considering that in their mind, electric and cars self-driving on their software was almost the same thing.

It was the perfect opportunity to attach her name to positive developments, hosting world-renowned scientists and their projects for a Utopia.

Only now, it turned out it had fallen through under a bomb threat on the evening of its opening gala. Fixing this would take even more than it already had, money being the least of her problems. But it could wait, it was too early to decide on a strategy, before she even new the first details of what had happened.

She stopped for a moment, eyes narrowed, then sat down in a chair uninvited.

"What do you think I should say?" she asked. "_You aren't on the guest list? _Or perhaps I should compliment you, _you clean up nicely, Mr. Pearce."_

"I'm not here for you," Pearce said. His phone rested on his knee, display brightly lit, making it hard for her not to steal a look at it, but he'd notice and she wasn't going to give him anything, not even her curiosity. There was a small flash of relief running through her at his words, unreliable as the reassurance might turn out to be. It dropped the immediate concern down a few points on her internal list of priorities, gave her a little space in which to judge him. Threatening to fire-bomb hundreds of mostly innocent people wasn't his style, but she wouldn't put the _threat _of it past him, just to puncture her recovering reputation.

He looked relaxed, though, casually leaned back in the plush of the armchair. He _did_ clean up nicely, making him barely recognisable to human observers, the only system he had to trick the old-fashioned way. With a shave and a hair-cut, a well-tailored suit would make anyone look decent, but his tall, densely-muscled body cut an especially handsome figure. If he didn't blend into the crowd, looking like this, it wasn't because people recognised him as the thug he was. She'd seen a similar effect on some of the Club enforcers, though to be fair, Pearce seemed much less uncomfortable in the getup than them.

He should still have been recognised, making it likely he hadn't been around long enough to give people a chance to take a longer look at him.

"Is this your game?" she asked.

He looked at her intensely, silently, weighing her. She didn't like his silence and there was no reason for her to let him have it his way. He only _thought _he held all the cards.

"It's going to make a good headline," she said. "A better one than the old _'Heather Quinn the head of the Chicago South Club?_' that's going around. _'The Vigilante shows his true colours'_."

Like a paper-cut, a small smile crossed his face, never touching his eyes. He still waited, but she knew he was going to answer in his own time.

Eventually, quietly, he said, "This isn't my setup."

"It doesn't have to be," she pointed out. "It'll be enough if people think it was."

He tilted his head at her, watching her in an ongoing revaluation of her worth or threat value or whatever it was he saw in her.

Several security people appeared by the door and Heather spotted the uniforms right behind them. She considered for a moment. Pearce wouldn't have come without some kind of exit strategy, but whatever it was, it would be a fragile construction, he had deliberately exposed and cornered himself. He was certain she wouldn't take the shot.

"We should talk somewhere more private," she said. "Without a bomb squad breathing down our necks, don't you think?"

She looked up, motioned her security people to stand down, gave the firefighter urging her to _fucking leave! _a bright smile as she walked past him. Pearce strode after her, jaded rich party guest unconcerned by the bombs. She noticed the ripple go through her people as they recognised who he was, the confusion of whether they were required to interfere, but they held back, reading her body language well enough.

With the hotel itself off limits, Heather took Pearce to her yacht moored at the Merlaut's pier. Someone had finally switched the fire alarm off and the wooden panelling in the luxury yacht dimmed the outside sounds. For the first moment inside, when the door fell closed behind Pearce, it was almost suffocating, but Heather refused to let it show.

Without pausing, she strode to the bar.

"Can I get you a drink?" she asked, picked a bottle of cognac and glasses. She sensed Pearce step in too close behind her, he slipped his hand down her bare back, barely a touch, just enough pressure to make her feel it.

"I'll handle the drinks," he said in a quiet rasp.

Inwardly amused, she conceded the point and stepped aside, withdrew to the massive desk and leaned against it, crossed her arms over her chest and watched his back.

He didn't really believe she'd drug him again, it had been just a point for him to make. He didn't even reach for another bottle, briefly glancing over the label, actually recognising it or at least pretending to. He filled two glasses, turned around stepped over to her, half an inch inside her personal space, giving her the choice between enduring it or overreacting.

She took the glass, smiling just slightly.

"You called it, you know," he said.

When she said nothing, he slightly tipped his glass against her's before he drank, edged away from her again and said, "You said the Russians would move in if you're weak."

He took a breath that sounded almost like a sigh. "Well, here they are."

"This doesn't look like their style," she pointed out.

"Their man in New York, Grigori Bragin, called 'Grisha' is known for the big gestures. It's given him a bit of a reputation back in the motherland so he got transferred here. I guess they've figured it wouldn't be that big of a deal in Chicago."

"I've never had trouble with Bratva before," she said, but refrained from pointing out how well her business went with them, or the nature of the merchandise Bratva helped move. It seemed a sore point for him.

"Well, you've never been weak before."

She took her gaze away from him, dragged it around the room while she was thinking it through. She knew the Club dealt with Grisha regularly, but he didn't ring any immediate bells, neither positively nor negatively. The Club dealt with all sorts of people and their organisations, it was nothing special in and of itself.

"So the bomb threat was a warning?" she asked. "Throwing their weight around?"

Shrugging, Pearce nodded, the corners of his mouth tensed in disdain. Transferring the glass into his other hand, he pulled his phone from his pocket, slipped his thumb across the screen a few times, then held it out to her.

Hesitating for a second, she took it. The picture it displayed made her blood run cold for a heartbeat. Explosive affixed expertly to a pillar in the basement. She swiped and saw another explosive on another pillar. Three, four, _seven_, as the pictures progressed with each shift of her thumb. She was no expert, it looked professional enough, but whether it could've actually brought down the building was hard to judge.

"We did a sweep yesterday," she said, looking up from the phone. "This shouldn't be possible."

"Perhaps you're trusting the wrong people," he said and held out his hand for the phone.

A curt knock on the door interrupted her thoughts and she turned her head to watch Iain storm into the room, visibly agitated, but he stalled suddenly when he recognised Pearce.

"What the hell?" he demanded, looking from Heather to Pearce and back. "What… he…?"

Heather was in no mood to indulge his confusion. She stood up from the desk and walked over, held the phone in his face and said, "How did this happen?"

Still confused, Iain took the phone from her hand, swiped through the pictures with visibly growing horror.

Heather left him to it and turned back to Pearce. He'd dropped his hand and stood relaxed with the brandy in his hand, waiting for them with unconcealed disinterest.

"So Bratva and Grisha attempt to kill me, destroy my business and my reputation."

"No, you're right," he said. "It's a warning. The remote detonator code wasn't set. The charges couldn't explode."

"How do you know?"

Pearce shook his head. "How I know?" he asked back as if it was a stupid question.

"I got the bomb maker locked up. I can deliver her to the cops and they'll handle this by the book, or you can have her."

Someone with the skill and backup to pull off a stunt like this, Heather could make good use of them. Someone who almost certainly had an inside track to Grisha and his plans, who could clue her into whatever else he might be planning to disrupt her organisation. Someone one like that would be invaluable. Perhaps she could even turn her, make her work for the Club instead.

"What's your price this time?"

Pearce said nothing for a moment, then a slight smile curled his lips before it vanished again. He said, "My phone back."

Looking caught, Iain looked up and frowned, still visibly trying to make sense of the situation, looking for a script to follow. He shifted forward uncertainly, held out the phone towards Pearce as if he preferred not to get too close to him. "Uh, sure."

Pearce pocketed the phone and turned his attention back to Heather.

"Bratva is bad news for everyone," he said. "The cops can't handle it alone."

Something in his serious tone tipped her off, for a moment she considered withholding the punch, but then said, "And neither can you. Am I right? You've come here looking for an alliance."

He pretended to be amused.

"You'll get your money's worth," he said, humour like parchment. "I'll let you know where you can pick up your package."

He emptied the glass and put it away, then strode past her and Iain, who tensed in an attempt to not flinch away. Pearce stepped through the door and let it fall closed behind him so quietly it left the vacuum of a thunderclap.

"I could put a tail on him," Iain said.

"No," Heather waved him off irritably. "There'll be plenty of time for that."

The stifling quietness was beginning to rub her nerves raw, it was cutting her off from where she needed to be.

"I want to talk to with whoever's in charge out there," she said. "I want to know if these charges are actually there at all."

It turned out, they were. Though unlike in Pearce's photos, the charges were covered up to prevent anyone from seeing them.

"The thing is," the head of the bomb disposal unit told Heather a little later. "It looks like sloppy work, but… the explosives themselves are high-end, someone knew what they were doing, but… well, you see, you need to get the explosives _into _the walls and pillars if you want to bring the building down."

Heather considered him for a moment, "It's a terror attack," she said. "It's doing it's job just fine like this. Doesn't need to bring the building down."

It was important to get fixed in people's heads very quickly. _Terror attack_. She didn't want even one respectable news source to even so much think aloud the idea this could be the opening salvo in a gangster war.

The man nodded thoughtfully, looking past at his men. "Strange times we're living in," he remarked.

Heather spared him a warm smile that failed to reach her eyes, already with thoughts elsewhere. She left the men to work in peace and returned to the yacht which served as temporary headquarter. She was reluctant to relocate somewhere else, she wanted to keep the Merlaut in her sight, even though she knew she probably didn't have much useful to contribute.

Iain got up from her chair when she walked in and she took it.

"I think I need to have a chat with King," she said.

The King, as Jacob King pompously called himself, had taken over from Carl Herrick as the business' security manager. She guessed the scenario was that some of these explosives had already been in place when they'd swept the hotel the day before, there were simply too many to bring them in in just one night, even if they were never meant to explode. For both, bringing the bombs in before _and _after the sweep, some of King's men must have been in on it. Perhaps without his knowledge, but Heather doubted that, especially if he was already in hiding. He must have known something was going on.

Iain frowned at her and said, "I can't reach him, I already tried."

He paused for a moment, clearly assembling the pieces in his own head before he said, "Do you think he's got anything to do with it? And the little rat's beaten it out of here?"

"Hm," she made, thinking for a long minute, bringing things into a semblance of order.

She took a breath. "It's going to be a long night," she said, though Iain was smart enough to not need the introduction. Without giving him any other warning, she rattled off what she needed him to do. Find a new location for the conference, keep the cops from prying too deeply into her affairs, fix her public image via an interview on TV and social media. She needed to work with few people on this, make sure she could trust them first, because if Bratva had already blown her organisation as wide open as it appeared, she would soon be jumping at shadows. It bothered her, but she could do this almost on auto-pilot. She could quantify these risks, even if she didn't know the details yet.

Pearce was the unknown, even if she had been correct in her assumption and he did need allies. He was good at holding grudges and she doubted he'd forgotten or forgiven their last meeting. Still, he'd put himself on her side in this instance, the trick was to know the moment — when it came — and he was her enemy again. Ironically, this still made Pearce more trustworthy than almost anyone in her organisation. Whatever else he was, he wasn't Bratva.

* * *

Aiden Pearce stood on the sidewalk across the street from the police line, lost in crowd of people craning their necks and taking pictures. No one was paying him any attention.

The cops had funnelled the Merlaut's guests into a separate area, but avoiding it had been so easy he could have done it in his sleep, leaving him too much time to be aware of the Merlaut's familiar, glittering shape above. A dark feeling was lingering in his throat, sneaking up on him when he didn't make sure to squash it fast enough.

When he'd seen the unset detonator code on the charges, something had unwound in his mind, like poison. It'd be easy to set that code. He could've waited until the Merlaut was evacuated, before the bomb squad moved in. He could have blown these charges, burned the Merlaut to the ground and all the bad memories with it.

Even now, when it was already too late, he somehow still had to fight against the urge to do it.

With a growl lodged in his throat, he turned his back on the Merlaut, though he felt it looming behind him, stalking him as he walked away. Shrugging the feeling off, he pulled his phone out and a new surge of anger wiped away the throbbing regret.

Seven missed calls, all from the fixer he'd hired to watch over the captured bomb maker. He plugged his earpiece in and dialled him, but didn't waste time and already called on the tracker he'd left on the bomb maker.

_"Shit, Pearce I'm sorry," _the fixer said when he answered. He sounded breathless. _"She fucking got away, but I'm still on her."_

"Are you running?"

_"Shit yes, bitch is fast, too."_

Pearce crossed the street to where a Boxberg was parked.

"Keep the pressure on," Pearce told him. "Don't let her make contact with Bratva."

_"Doing my fucking best!"_

"Don't kill her," Pearce added in case the fixer forgot about that detail in the heat of it.

_"Fuck!"_

Pearce hoped that was an affirmative, but decided to let it go. The fixer sounded like he didn't have breath to spare for a prolonged conversation. He got in the car and threw his custom HUD against the windshield. It fed him live information about his surrounding, about ctOS access points he'd unlocked and could use, nearby police presence and a dozen other things he'd customised his system to filter for.

For now, all he was interested in was the location of the bomb maker. The fixer was right, she was moving fast and Pearce was quite a bit out from where he'd had her locked up. Good thing the Boxberg would get him there in no time. He put the traffic lights hack on continuous when he swerved out into the street, pushing the speed limit and other regulations, but not at breakneck speed. The situation didn't warrant it, besides the more time he gave the traffic lights to change, the less disruptive the hack would be and the less attention he was likely to attract. Blume was monitoring these malfunctions and he didn't have time to handle them right now.

He watched the moving tracker on the map, the area wasn't densely populated with little pedestrian traffic, giving the bomb maker few options to just snatch up someone's phone as she went. If he got closer, he could knock out cell coverage for a time, cutting her off, but he was still a few minutes away from that.

The fixer called.

"Where you're at?"

For a moment, there was just panting, then, _"I… lost… fuck… fast fucking… bitch."_

Despite the situation, Pearce smiled briefly to himself. He said, "Well, she _was _an olympic athlete."

_"… like twenty years ago?"_

"Then how's she outrunning you?"

The fixer didn't answer, still trying to catch his breath. After another moment while his panting gradually faded, he said, _"Shit… what now?"_

Pearce watched the still moving dot of the tracker on his map. He pushed the gas down a little more and the Boxberg slid roughly across the asphalt as Pearce took it to the right lane and overtook a stalling line heading to a crossroads.

"I'll call you," Pearce said noncommittally before he hung up. He could try directing the fixer to the woman's location but by the looks of it, the man wasn't going to keep up either way. Pearce had vetted him primarily for how trustworthy he was, less for his stamina, though perhaps that had been shortsighted.

His phone let him know he was within range of the radio cell and Pearce didn't hesitate to punch in the command to disrupt it. Blume was becoming wise to this particular trick, the cell towers now had redundant systems running which they booted into when something interrupted them. Half the time, these systems ran on the same backdoors the original did, meaning Pearce could easily just knock it out again, but it was an ongoing problem. Eventually, he'd be forced out of the system and would have to rely on hi-jacking the signal and cancelling it on the device end of things. For the moment, however, he had a few more minutes to catch up to the woman when she didn't have the chance to call for help.

Pearce took the Boxberg past a rundown row of houses and into the inappropriate quaintly named Little Village. The bomb maker had veered away from the main streets and into the trash-littered, debris-strewn back alleys of the neighbourhood. The Boxberg was too large and unwieldy to follow, so Pearce took it around a bent, sped up again past where he'd be level with her current position, overtaking her before he stopped the car by the side of the road.

The L rumbled along above him as he got out, phone briefly up in front of him to orient himself and surmise the woman's direction.

Having lost her pursuer, she'd slowed down a little, but was still going fairly fast.

Pearce locked the Boxberg, though the group of 'bangers nearby had already noticed him and the car. He'd be surprised if it was still there by the time he got back, he'd need to acquire another car for the ride back. Someone shouted an obscenity after him, but no one bothered to harass him, the car was more interesting.

He strode along leisurely, slowly circling in towards where the woman was still moving, keeping houses and abandoned dumpsters between them. He came across a homeless camp, huddled together against L-track pillars with the track above offering at least some shelter from the weather.

The woman slowed down more, then stopped completely and frowning, Pearce finally looked up from his phone to navigate the area on his own.

He broke into a run when the tracker revealed the bomb maker had abruptly changed direction. He was still too far away, so she couldn't have spotted him, but something else had attracted her attention and he had a feeling he wouldn't like it.

Finally close enough, he dropped his phone into his pocket, took a quick sprint that allowed him to jump onto two cars, piled on each other. The rusted vehicles swayed a little under his weight but held steady.

In front of him, a shoddy parking lot spread out all the way to nondescript warehouses and a closed and shuttered up Quinkie's. The woman was heading for the latter and Pearce spotted what she must have seen: An old pay-phone, leaning askew by the roadside next to the Quinkie's.

Wasting no time, Pearce jumped from the cars and started running. He hadn't taken a gun into the Merlaut, he hadn't wanted to unnecessarily provoke the Club members while he needed their complacency.

The woman had reached the pay-phone, picked up the receiver, using the moment to look around, spotting Pearce. He was close enough to see her hesitate, caught in indecision between staying and taking him on or running away and hoping she'd lose him like she had the fixer.

The moment of hesitation lost her her advantage. He wasn't sure if he could outrun her, certainly not with these shoes, but the time it took her to reach a decision, drop the phone and turn away wasn't enough to let her reach any speed. Just past the phone, he launched himself at her and tore her down with his full weight.

With his grip on her, he made sure she crashed face first into the ground, she struggled, dazed for no more than a second, then made a swift shift to the side, trying to dislodge him. He caught one of her wrists, pulled her arm out of the way and snapped his elbow into her face. Groaning, her resistance faltered for just long enough he rolled her around, wrists held in one hand, knee laid across her thighs. He slapped a pair of flexicuffs on her wrists.

She shouted at him in French and Russian, though he didn't understand the specifics, he had a pretty good idea of what she was calling him. But it was all she was going to do for the moment so he simply got up and took a step away from her, in case she tried kicking at him.

Realising he was out of reach, she dropped her head back down to the asphalt in resignation.

Pearce wandered back to the pay-phone and picked up the receiver. Surprisingly, it was giving a free-line signal. He hung it up, then turned back to keep the woman in sight while he called the fixer.

"Steve," he said. "I need a pickup."

_"On my way," _the fixer said. _"Uh, I want you to know that this could've been avoided if you'd knee-capped her like I said."_

Pearce rolled his eyes a little. "She's useless if she bleeds out."

_"Like the Club's not going to hang her upside down…"_

"'course they are, but that's their mess. Don't make me wait."

_"No, never."_

Hanging up, Pearce returned to the woman, pulled her to her feet roughly and dragged her to the shuttered up Quinkie's where he pushed her into a soiled bench. She snarled at him again.

Pearce regarded her for a long minute, staring down at her seated form.

"It's probably a good thing I have no idea what you're saying."

She glared and said, "I'm willing to repeat it."

"Only if you want me to deal with it."

He stepped aside and sat down on the bench, stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles, in every appearance of relaxation, waiting for her to break the silence.

She lasted somewhat longer than he had expected, but eventually she shifted in her seat and said, "You don't want to mess with this."

"Why?"

"Because you have no idea what you're getting into."

He arched a brow, giving her a short glance.

"People keep saying that to me like they think it's gonna stop me."

She chortled a laugh. "We heard all about you," she said. "Trust me, you don't want to get between us and the Club. I don't even understand why you care. Why not let us wipe them out for you?"

"Is that your argument?" he asked, feigning surprise.

"Why do you think it's a bad one?"

He shook his head. "I'm tired of people like you," he said. "You got in my way, that's all."

She frowned at the side of his face, but without looking back at her, he couldn't be sure of her expression. He doubted she'd try to run away again. A few years older than him, she was built like a whippet, no wonder the fixer hadn't been able to keep up, but she wasn't strong enough to mount a descent defence against him.

"What now?" she asked. "You're handing me over to the Club, what for? You think they can actually make me talk?"

He tilted his head and gave her a sidelong glance. "Think of it as helping your boss."

"Are you stupid?"

"Chicago isn't New York. The rules are different here."

"Oh yeah, because there's no ctOS in New York. I hate to break it to you, but Blume's been branching out into every other city and Chicago isn't special anymore. We've got our deals with them. It's not perfect, but we're good with Blume."

"Yeah that's the thing," he leaned back, let his gaze wander across the open, derelict space in front of them. "It's not Blume you've got to worry about."

"What, you?" she laughed and it sounded genuine. Pearce gave her a slow grin, then let it fade as he looked away from her again.

"I'm going to help _you,_" she said with affected kindness. "You don't understand what you're getting into. We have an army. It doesn't matter how many you kill or ruin or… whatever scheme you've hatched. There'll just be more. Bratva didn't want Chicago, we had a good relationship with the Club, but they're too weak now, they're useless to us. If your lackey can't do the job, what do you do? You do it yourself. Heather Quinn will understand it, perhaps there's even some job for her."

She paused for a moment, tittered another mocking laugh. "But you're not going to be there to see it."

"Is this the part where I get scared? You'll have to tell me, because I ain't feeling it."

"What I said is true, so you're either lying to yourself or you're just stupid."

She shifted, pulled at the flexicuffs for a moment, then gave up and settled into silence.

She was in no position to make any threats he'd need to take seriously, he'd already dug through the muddied waters of her past. Lucille Roche had been working with and for Grisha for many years. Pearce hadn't been quite able to figure out their connection, because while most of the information was there, he couldn't read it and translation programmes didn't always provide a coherent result, especially from Russian. How and where she'd been recruited by Bratva was a mystery to him, but he wasn't even sure it was information he'd need. She cropped up in police reports now and then, first in Marseille, then in New York, clearly going where-ever Grisha was running the show for Bratva.

When Steve finally arrived, Pearce slipped to his feet, turned and looked down at the woman.

"How about we forget about this?" she asked lightly, clearly joking. "No bad feelings, eh? I heard you're not a fan of the Merlaut exactly."

He looked at her sharply, a reflex he hadn't been able to check before it gave him away and the smug expression on her face told him she'd been angling for exactly that reaction. No one alive knew about the Merlaut, not enough to put the pieces together. The Club had tried, Heather could probably make an educated guess about what had led him to go after Lucky all these years ago, but the details should've been lost a long time ago.

Lucille said nothing more in self-satisfied silence and before Pearce had time to question her further, Steve climbed out of the car and walked over.

"Oh god Pearce! Let me just say again how sorry I am," he said. A bump was clearly visible on the side of his head and his skin had an unhealthy tone. Pearce looked him over silently.

Pearce dragged the woman to her feet and marched her towards the car, though she dug her heels in the moment she realised he was heading for the trunk.

"Come on, don't," she grumbled. "Don't make me."

"For your good conduct?" Pearce asked. "You're lucky I don't break your ankles."

"Pearce, I'm sorry," Steve said again, standing a little away from them and watched as Pearce opened the trunk.

The woman growled a little, but climbed in without more resistance, but she was beginning to mumble foreign swear words again, glaring at Pearce before she sighed and let her head drop.

"Are we…?" Steve began when Pearce closed the trunk and strode around the car to the driver's side door.

"I'm handling it," Pearce said. "Get your head checked."

On reflex, Steve lifted his hand to his head and felt along the bump carefully, pulling a face. "But… I hate to be that guy, but… are you paying me for this?"

Pearce stared at him, waited for a moment. Of course he was going to pay him, it served no one to be petty about it and Lucille had already punished him for his fuck-up, but Pearce wasn't feeling generous about.

"You need to do what I tell you," Pearce said. "And then I'll think about it."

* * *

Momentarily lost in thought, Heather watched the city outside the mirrored and bulletproof window of her Magnate change from the glitter of the Loop to the bare-boned charm of Brandon Docks.

By her side, Iain was speaking on the phone, checking with their hackers if the place had been scouted and was clear. Not that she expected any traps from Pearce, but the bombs in the Merlaut had her worried about more such tripwires being thrown in her path.

"I'm surprised he agreed," Iain said and Heather let an irritated look pass over him.

Pearce had proposed to make the exchange in a far more public place, at the Riverwalk downtown, or at the Botanical Gardens in Parker Square. She'd had Iain refuse both locations and Pearce had acquiesced almost immediately.

"He doesn't care," she said.

"But… public places are a lot easier to control for him, his ctOS access is… well, whatever it is. He's only got himself to worry about, so…"

"He doesn't care," she repeated and gave Iain a longer look until he got the point and fell silent. Iain was right, a public place gave Pearce a few advantages over the Club, but he didn't need to push for it too hard. He could be reasonably sure Heather wasn't going to attack him this early on, not when he was voluntarily parting with valuable information and support.

Heather listened to Iain make another call, then said, "Why can't we find King?"

Iain took a disgruntled breath before he answered, "I'm guessing he switched sides."

"Of course," she agreed. "But why can't we find him?"

"D'Souza said he checked the ctOS logs and King hasn't shown up anywhere. He's lying low, I bet. But I also bet he's still in Chicago."

Heather took her gaze away from him, looked outside the window thoughtfully.

"King's the key," she said. "He's the connection between Grisha and us and everything Bratva has planned, not to mentioned that he knows the names of everyone who's turned on us. If we can't find him, I'll have to ask Pearce."

"Why do you even trust him?"

"I don't," Heather said.

"We shouldn't be doing this," he said. "He'll just screw us over."

She glanced at him again and smiled a little.

"He'll try, but not right now. I'll gladly sit back and watch him screw over Bratva first."

"Unless he's working for them and this is just a ruse," Iain muttered, though more to himself so she left him his musings uncontradicted.

They slowed down, someone lifted the construction fence aside to let them onto the site. Heather's car and the two others drove through and her man pushed the fence closed again. It wasn't the most secure site, but unlike Pearce, Heather didn't have much of a taste for an audience, especially when she wasn't sure if things would go her way.

Her driver drove through the open gate into the empty warehouse, then stopped the car. Her two escorts stopped in a small half circle around them and her bodyguards got out. The cameras here weren't networked to ctOS, only to Taurus, the private security company she owned. If Pearce had access to these feeds, at least they were all on a level playing field.

"No one here who shouldn't be," Iain announced after he'd checked through the feeds. "Pearce isn't here either."

"Fashionable late," she corrected, chuckled a little at Iain's annoyed look and opened the door. She got out and walked a few steps away from the car, taking stock of her surrounding through the thin protection of her sunglasses.

The warehouse was completely empty, old railway tracks cutting it in half, their gates rusted open on all ends. Some trash and other industrial debris had accumulated here and there, dry grass cracking open the old concrete floor. Looking up, several of the windows on the roof and along the wall were broken, letting in streaks of sunlight and an almost uncomfortably cool draft gliding down her neck and back.

Iain had got out and walked around the car, leaning with his back against it as he alternated between looking around and down at his phone.

"It's all clear," her bodyguard said as he returned from the quick round he and his colleagues had done of the warehouse. Iain nodded in agreement and Heather said, "Good, keep your nerves, we're not looking for a fight."

A tiny tightening in the bodyguard's facial expression betrayed his misgiving, but he nodded grimly. Almost everyone in the Club had had some bad experience with Pearce, sometimes not personally, but everyone knew someone who had. Someone's deal falling through, someone's life being lost, someone being crippled for life. Pearce wasn't everywhere, but he was doing a good enough impression to make everyone wary and not a little itchy to take the shot when it presented itself. Not these men, though, Heather wouldn't have brought them if she didn't trust them to follow her orders.

"Here goes," Iain said sardonically and pushed away from the car to step in behind her shoulder.

Pearce drove in over one of the train-track entrances, swept his banged-up old Vespid in a circle and stopped a respectful distance away. He got out of the car, casually dressed in jeans and T-shirt in the unusually warm spring. A baseball cap dropped a shadow over his face and his gaze was completely hidden by black sunglasses, reflecting the light. He was armed, shoulder holster and a smaller one holding the baton on his belt, he'd stuck his phone into the back-pocket of his jeans.

Behind Heather's shoulder, Iain snorted and muttered, "We could kill him. He's not wearing any body armour."

"That's because we're not killing him," Heather said, growing impatient with having to repeat it. At least the others had accepted her decision that Pearce was off-limits for now, but Iain seemed to think he had to keep pushing, as if he thought he needed to protect her from some terrible mistake she was making. He wasn't normally so dense to her reasoning, making it especially irritating that he didn't seem to be picking on this one. Killing Pearce was just one way of getting rid of him, after all.

The Vespid's trunk was tiny and Heather spared a moment of pity for the woman Pearce pulled out of it, hoping she hadn't been in there for too long.

Heather strode forward, Iain behind him and stopped halfway between her people and Pearce. He shoved the woman forward, her hands were bound behind her back and she looked hot and sweat-slicked from her trip in the trunk. She was also not a little incensed, glaring at Pearce before she turned her attention to Heather.

"Lucille Roche," Pearce introduced her. "Born in Nice, France, Olympic athlete, but she got retroactively disqualified for doping. Joined the French army, spent ten years clearing minefields in the Middle East. Dishonourable discharge, worked for Bratva in Europe for a few years, came to New York with Grisha."

"You don't understand the first thing about this, _branleur_," Lucille sneered.

"Mouthy," Pearce added. "I suggest you hamstring her, she's fast."

Heather made a sharp gesture with her hand. "Pack her up."

One of her men stepped forward, gripped Lucille by the upper arm after Pearce had given her a shove away from him.

Lucille grumbled a curse, but Heather paid her no attention, keeping it fixed on Pearce.

"Thank you," she said, studying Pearce's face, considering how far she could trust him. Showing too much weakness wasn't in her nature and she'd made him fall for it once before, she doubted he'd let it happen again.

"I need your help in another matter," she said. "We've…"

A shot bit through the tranquil air, somewhere behind her. Instinctively, Heather dropped into a crouch and glanced over her shoulder, just in time to see a second shot drive through Lucille's chest after the first one had punctured her shoulder. Lucille was ripped out of the grip of the man who held her, thrown to the ground. A third shot felled the bodyguard.

The shots fell like hail, ripping into the concrete and her bodyguards in that first moment, before they could even react. Iain gripped her shoulder and half dragged her back to the car. He yelped when a shot grazed his arm and his grip of her slipped away.

Cursing, Heather twisted her own arm and pulled him down, dragged him the last inch behind the bulk of the car, where two of her bodyguards were also in cover. Lucille and the dead bodyguard still lay there, but the first shots had hit true and they were both already dead.

"What the fuck's going on?" Heather yelled, not even sure who she was asking. Iain looked as confused as she was, holding on to his bleeding arm.

"Mrs. Quinn!" a bodyguard yelled. "Get in the car! We'll hold them off!"

She had time for a quick glance around, but there were only her people, clinging to the cover of their cars, their guns out but looking for targets. The shots were coming from above, from the roof, through the open or broken windows there.

She had to push the dead bodyguard aside to open the door, scrambled inside with Iain right behind her. Feeling a little better inside the car, Heather lifted her head and got a better look around, froze at what she saw past the driver's tense shoulder.

"Shit," she murmured, not sure if where the breath in her lungs had gone to.

Where Pearce had stood only a moment before was now a large puddle of blood and a thick trail of it leading back to his car. He'd pressed his back against it and he'd had time to draw his gun, though it lay discarded by his side as he clutched at a bleeding wound at the side of his neck.

Heather settled a guiding hand on the driver's shoulder and leaned forward between the front seats.

"Drive between the attackers and Pearce," she said. He nodded, hit the gas and drove the heavy car the short distance, hit the brakes sharply and made the tail swing out a little, successfully covering Pearce from most angles.

"Mrs. Quinn…?" the driver asked, opened his door to over a little additional cover.

"Stay," Heather told him as she pulled back, made eye contact with Iain, his face was grim, clearly in pain from his own injury, but he nodded. She kicked her door open and dropped out. Several shots impacted the car close to her head, and her heart jumped in her throat as she dropped to her knees by Pearce said.

His sunglasses had slipped down the length of his nose, blood smearing along the ashen skin of his face, green eyes far too bright. She had no time to try to read his expression, but he focussed on her, gaze digging too hard into her's.

"Heather!" Iain shouted. "We have to got out of here!"

Heather snapped her head around, fixed on Iain and said, "Help me get him inside."

Pearce had enough presence of mind to help, but he'd lost a lot of blood in an incredibly short amount of time, whatever strength of coordination he would otherwise have, had long since been lost, leaving Heather and Iain to heave him into the back of the car. Pearce's hands slipped away from the open wound on his neck, going limp even as Heather climbed in the car behind him and pulled the door closed.

"Drive!" she commanded and the driver hit the gas again, taking them away from the shootout while the bullets were still pattering against the car, denting the reinforced material alarmingly.

* * *

_End of _Perfect Play - Part 1_

* * *

**Reference:**

_branleur _(French) = wanker

* * *

**Author's Note: **Nope, couldn't leave it yet.


	74. Perfect Play - Part 2

**Warning: ** Full frontal male nudity.

* * *

**_Perfect Play - Part 2**

* * *

It barely hurt, Pearce only realised he was in trouble when the blood soaked wet and warm into his shirt and his hand came away drenched. He'd been focussed on watching the bomb maker drop like a dead bird, tracing the direction of the shot to the roof. He couldn't see anyone against the glare of the sky and a moment later, it became irrelevant.

He was losing too much blood, he couldn't keep fighting like that, but a small part of his mind registered that the blood wasn't arterial and maybe he'd get to live if help came fast enough.

The prospect of death wasn't something that bothered Pearce overtly much even on a particularly bad day. It'd find him eventually, he'd go down fighting if he had the chance and if he didn't, it'd be quick and hopefully comparatively painless. In a way, he supposed, his death solved many problems. Once he was gone, Nicky and Jacks wouldn't be potential targets anymore for whoever was gunning for him at any one time. And he'd count that as a win.

He felt the hard bulk of his car behind him, keeping him upright, the bullets pattering the ground all around him and punching through the car. With fire from above like this, he might as well not have bothered with running for cover because it wouldn't matter much…

When he regained consciousness, the fight was still in his body, pulling his muscles tight and ready, trying to jerk upright against the sudden hard pressure of hands on his shoulders. He supposed the surgeon and the nurse holding him down were lucky, dazed and weak, he couldn't do much damage before his brain kicked into gear and he realised where he was.

"Just calm down," a female voice said, soothing but stern and he let himself be pushed back to the bed. "You're almost through it."

The hands vanished when he made no other attempt to move. He'd dislodged the oxygen mask, but the nurse pulled it away, now that he was conscious again.

The surgeon had apparently already closed the wound on his neck, Pearce felt the skin pulled too tight for comfort, ready to split open with every careless tension of muscles.

A woman crouched into his field of vision, giving him a quick, habitual smile.

"You're doing fine," she explained. "Just hold steady for a little while longer."

He didn't feel up to doing much else, anyway, at least not for a few more minutes.

He didn't have the greatest experience with hospitals anyway, generally preferring to avoid them in favour of some mob doctor or a veterinarian looking to earn something on the side. Hospitals asked too many questions. The first time he'd stayed in one for any length of time, it had been after he'd been beaten nearly to death and he'd gone from hospital straight to prison. Neither was something he'd want to repeat.

The second time when he'd woken up in a hospital had been infinitely worse.

He breathed through the drug-muffled pain while the surgeon cleaned the fresh stitches, applied some kind of salve, then carefully affixed a large patch over it. It glued uncomfortably under his jawline and up to his ear and he had a feeling it wouldn't stick too well against the stubble on his neck, but it'd do for now. He'd need to move soon.

The surgeon's shadow vanished and the nurse's hand was back at his shoulder, this time with a slight nudge to help him sit up. "Careful," she said.

His vision blurred a little when he sat up, but then cleared and he took the chance to look around again, he was alone with the surgeon and the nurse in the cubicle created by privacy screens. The nurse hung up a blood bag by his side, connected it to the IV in his arm.

The surgeon said, "I'd like to keep you here, but…" His hesitation was full of misgiving. "You're stable for a transfer. It's not bad injury, as these things go." He paused, tightening the corners of his mouth. "I'd say you should take it easy and I'd schedule a checkup, but… We'll see. There's also no need for you to be alarmed or do anything stupid."

"Like what?" Pearce croaked.

"Like breaking out and making a run for it. Mrs. Quinn is a very important benefactor of this hospital and she's vouching for you."

Pearce said nothing, just watched the surgeon's face for any sign he would put that misgiving into an anonymous call to the police anyway.

The nurse pushed one of the screens aside and stepped out, there were voices and a moment later, Heather walked to his bedside. She sought out the surgeon and nodded. He kept a thoughtful gaze on Pearce for a moment, but then withdrew without offering an argument.

Heather had changed clothes, if she'd been the one to pull him out, she'd have been drenched in his blood, but she looked as pristine as ever. She looked him over for a moment, then dug her gaze into his and said, "How did you not see that coming?"

"There were snipers on the roof," he said, looked away for a moment trying to reconstruct his reasoning. "I thought they were just your backup."

Surprise flitted across her face, immediately replaced by a grim mask of conviction. "The bomb maker's dead. So are seven of my best people."

She paused, then added, "Almost lost you, too. No need to thank me."

"I figure it makes us even."

She seemed amused for a second, glancing down over him, gaze lingering on the bandage on his neck. "Yes," she agreed lightly. "History repeats, doesn't it."

She crossed her arms over her chest. "Where are we at? Grisha has infiltrated my organisation. Few people knew about that meeting, most of them are dead and the others… I'm keeping an eye on them, but I don't know who to trust anymore. How is that possible? How is Grisha able to do all that so efficiently?"

Pearce bared his teeth a little, "Failure of leadership?"

"It's your fault," she said, subtle snarl in her voice.

Pearce snorted a tired laugh, let his head rest a little deeper into the small cushion under his neck. "My pleasure."

"You are going to help me fix it," Heather stated, the tone she used for giving orders to her people. She must know it'd make him bristle, so he just let it pass over him without reaction. Lethargy was seeping into his mind, making it rather appealing to just stay where he was for a day or two, watching her try to pull all the strings she had to keep the hospital staff from remembering their conscience. The smart thing would be to wait until the blood transfusion was done and get out of dodge as fast as he could, but he judged he still had a little time for that.

"You were willing to help before," Heather insisted. "Nothing changed."

"I was letting you have Lucille," Pearce pointed. "That's all."

Heather pulled a displeased face, "I don't know who I can trust anymore. The people on the roof were mine, the men in Merlaut were mine. I don't understand what is going on. I told few people about the meeting, but we both know someone could've listened in."

"You got your hacker, you got someone at Blume, you don't need me."

Heather eyed him sharply. "_Nothing_ changed," she said again, but with a different inflection in her tone. "There's something you're not telling me about all of this. Something that's scaring you, perhaps? I know we're only talking because Bratva spooked you."

Pearce arched a brow at her, he waved limply with a tired arm, light-headed enough to be faintly amused by her attempt to play his male ego. He probably shouldn't antagonise her quite so badly, not until he was back on his own feet at least, but she was pushing too hard and too early for a commitment. She was asking him to lie to her face while he still needed her goodwill.

Unexpectedly, Heather dropped the argument, face still grim and eyes narrowed as she forced a stiff shrug, then turned around wordlessly and left.

Pearce allowed himself to drift, mind and body relaxed in the certainty that, for now, he was perfectly safe.

The nurse returned, did something on the cabinet with her back to him, then stepped to his side with an injection.

"What's that?" he asked as she put it to the IV.

"Don't worry," she said. He spotted Heather standing just outside the privacy screens, gaze fixed on him like a hungry wolf, setting off alarm bells in his head.

"It'll help you sleep," the nurse finished and the world washed out completely even before she finished speaking. History repeating itself indeed.

* * *

When he came to the second time, he kept his wits about him and eyes closed until his mind slipped into sharper focus and he could trust its observation. He was lying on something soft, too soft for a hospital, silk or satin under his skin and a thick pillow under his head. The only source of discomfort was his right arm, slowly getting cold in the caress of an A/C.

There was no sound other than the A/C, either, no distant cars or radio or neighbours, everything was quiet. He cracked his eyes open slowly, traced his gaze over the edge of the bed and its dark blue sheets over the high, white walls, some abstract painting filing the empty space.

His right arm was cuffed to the metal frame of the bed he was lying on. He pulled on the chain carefully, but it seemed solid. He didn't recognise the make of the cuffs, either, certainly not regular police cuffs, which he could've broken out of easily.

A metal cabinet on wheels stood near the bed, some medical equipment and a fresh pack of bandages on top of. It seemed out of place in what was a spacious hotel suite, kept in dark-blue and stark white. He had to be either fairly high up, along the shore or he was in the outskirts of Chicago, given that he only saw a patch of bright sky through a window.

On the bedside table, Pearce spotted his phone, snatched it up immediately. He'd been asleep — drugged up to his eyeballs — for twenty-four hours straight, though he didn't feel especially rested.

Checking the logs, the phone had registered several access attempts, so leaving him the phone hadn't been Heather's first idea.

There was a new message waiting for him.

_You are in the Holy Well Health Clinic. You don't have to worry about cops and I've done everything possible so you don't have to worry about Bratva any more than I do. It stands to reason that Grisha cannot have gotten to everyone. I apologise for the handcuffs, they are merely to ensure we can talk before you leave. Call me when you're ready. -H_

Well, he wasn't ready yet. But before he did anything else, he checked his phone again, in case it had been cracked without him noticing, but he found no indication it had been compromised. He scanned the area for ctOS access points and logged in to take a look around the clinic.

Holy Well was a private clinic for those with the money to pay for its high-class services and guaranteed privacy. It was run by an old friend of Lucky Quinn's, so Heather picking it for Pearce's recuperation wasn't surprising. The old guard, from Lucky's time, weren't quite as likely to fall for whatever Grisha was offering them, if indeed that was all Grisha was doing.

Pearce knew he had been too quick to dismiss the Club members on the roof of the warehouse, he shouldn't have just assumed they were Heather's people just because their background checks said they were Chicago South Club, not when he'd already known that Bratva was buying off people.

The men's Profiler information was saved on his phone, though, so at least he could track them. The bomb maker would've been a better and more useful lead back to Grisha, but the men on the roof must have _some _knowledge of what was going on, too. Enough for him to apply pressure until something gave, which he would be doing with gusto, because he took people shooting him personally.

Tracking them with just the phone wouldn't be possible, though, he needed access to ctOS' stored files and the CPD database to check their background, find out where they were now. He hoped Heather's people hadn't killed all of them by the time he caught up to them.

Even with his mistake still galling him and making him suspicious, he found no people in the clinic he felt deserved his special attention. Most of them were completely harmless, some local and national celebrities, an Arabic millionaire and his extended family, some foreign business people. Most of the clinic's staff didn't have records of their own, only the head people would know or suspect who was really running the show. Security was provided by Taurus and Pearce made a mental note to check out the company's files later.

Satisfied for the time being, Pearce put his phone aside and pulled his hand in front of him to examine the cuff closer. It wasn't the most secure setup he'd ever seen, but he'd need at least some wire or similar to break the lock. He was pretty sure the metal cabinet had what he needed, but there wasn't enough give in the chain to reach it. The bed proved far too solid, too. He'd probably get it loose eventually, but he decided it didn't warrant the effort when he had an easier way out of this.

He picked his phone up again and texted Heather: _Now._

Only a few minutes later, he got a text back from Heather, or at least someone using her contact information or even her phone. _One hour. _

He snorted in irritation, but settled back and tried to relax, while he accessed the Clinic's free wifi and used to dig deeper into the place's network, rifling through patient files to pass the time. He found most of the rooms had discreet video and audio surveillance and it wasn't hard to guess what the gathered information would be used for.

A knock on the door made him glance up from the phone and a moment later, a young man walked in. He was dressed in a dark suit and with tightly controlled manners, Profiler identified him as an assistant of the clinic's director.

He stopped at the foot of the bed, tried very hard not to fidget, gaze darting over Pearce and the room behind him, as if he was looking for escape routes.

"I'm supposed to unlock you," he said, holding up the key in front of him.

Wordlessly, Pearce rattled the chain a little and lifted his arm. The young man blinked in nervous confusion, lowered the key and said, "Um, Mrs. Quinn asked me to, uh, please ask you to wait for her."

"One hour, yeah," Pearce said, deliberately looking down at the phone and not the young man, vaguely hoping he'd work up his nerve quickly so he could finally get rid of that ball and chain Heather thought was going to make him compliant.

When this wasn't enough to get the young man to make up his mind, Pearce looked up again, held out his chained hand and said, "Just give me the key."

The young man shook into motion, scurried forward just far enough he could put the key into Pearce's palm, then retreated again to the foot of the bed.

"Uh, we have room service, if you're hungry," he said. "And there are fresh clothes in the cupboard for you."

Pearce listened with one ear, unlocking the cuffs and flexing his arm when it was freed. He sat up and swung his legs over the side, but then had to hold on quickly to the bed when his vision unexpectedly blacked out.

Groaning, he blinked a few times until the vertigo receded.

"If you need medical assistance, you…"

"I'm fine," Pearce snapped and the young man flinched back several steps, but kept hovering, eyeing Pearce with an expression aggravatingly undecided between panic and pity.

"You can go," Pearce told him. "Tell Mrs. Quinn I'll be here."

"Of course," the young man nodded emphatically, took several subservient steps back before he turned around and hurried from the room.

He wasn't fine, trying to stand proved a bigger challenge than he had anticipated. He'd suffered blood-loss before, but never so much in such a short time. Heather dumping him into the nearest ER was the only reason he was still alive and the physical damage was, technically, minimal. He felt along the bandage again, moved his head a little to test it. No damage to his limbs, or bones or muscles, just a frustrating lack of strength and a wooly kind of lingering headache. He wondered if he could get another blood-bag from room service, maybe it'd put him back on his feet.

He pulled himself to his feet, anyway, stretched his arms out over his back to try and force some limberness back into them. The hospital gown irritated him, so he slipped it off and balled it up, tossed it away as he retrieved his phone to keep an eye on the clock while he explored the luxury suite.

In the living room he found his empty gun holster on the table, with the baton and his belt by its side. He couldn't remember where he'd lost his gun, somewhere in that warehouse probably, but he'd get another. He slipped the baton from its sheath and swung it in a sharp arc, making the segments spring free smoothly. It made him feel better already.

* * *

With carefully measured steps, Heather walked into the suite unannounced. A a quick check with the clinic's security had revealed that they had, unsurprisingly, lost control over the surveillance on the entire floor and any attempts to restore it had so far failed, leading to the security chief calling it off. Staff hadn't been told who was in the suite, but if this sort of order got handed down, it was just generally better to shut the fuck up and wait for further instructions.

Heather felt tired and jittery. Unlike Pearce and Iain, she'd barely got any sleep and she knew it was starting to show. The skin of her face felt dry, pulled too tightly over her bones, as if it was close to split open if she tried to make any expression other than a scowl.

Iain had had the decency to argue before he fell asleep and she'd let him be. Pearce, on the other hand, had apparently entertained himself with the Clinic's network and a generous helping off of the room service menu. He sprawled on the couch when she walked in, dressed in a Holy Well bathrobe, but looking angled and vicious as he scrutinised her.

The TV was showing a repeat of the press conference she'd given at the Rosette Hotel, where she'd relocated the clean-energy conference to. For a moment, she watched herself, the impeccable porcelain mask of her face and mourned a little the way it was starting to crack.

"We need to talk about that drugging me habit," Pearce greeted her. He sounded amused, but not in a reassuring way, more with the clear implication that the only reason he hadn't paid it back yet was because he was still working on the details.

"I saved your life," she said, the second time and felt that it shouldn't be necessary to expect some form of gratitude for it.

"You'll regret it," he shrugged.

Heather swallowed down the urge to shoot back and drag him into an argument. He was baiting her, she was sure of it, using it to distract her from what it was she really wanted from him.

"Can we at least talk?" she asked, the coils of her self-control wrapping tight around her throat, scratching her voice. "You shut me down too fast in the hospital. If you'd listened, I could've told you who's almost certainly behind it. And I need your help to find him."

Large mug in one hand, Pearce picked up the phone from his side, gave it a little toss so it landed in his hand. He slid his thumb across its screen.

"Yeah?"

"After Herrick died, a man named Jacob King became my security manager. King worked closely with Herrick, they were in the same unit in the army, but I don't know any details. King's… not the man Herrick was, but he's good. Very loud, but it impresses the masses. Hits first. Likes to call himself _the _King. I can't get a hold of him since the Merlaut."

She watched him, while his focus was on the phone. When he said nothing, she continued, "King was in a key position to get the bombs in place and to hide them during the sweep. The men who attacked us during the meet, they must have been his. If you checked them, they'd probably look like my people to you."

"I figured," he grumbled noncommittally. "Why can't ctOS find him?"

"You tell me," she said tartly. "I can't trust my people, but _think _there's nothing there. I pushed on everyone I could at Blume, but again: nothing. He's not shown his face since that night. Not to a ctOS camera."

"What about his friends?"

She took a breath. "It's… not ideal. Some are gone just like him, or they don't know anything or… at least pretend they don't know. I haven't been cracking down on them as hard as I normally would, I don't want to break anything right now."

She leaned forward, fixed him. "I'm getting paranoid here and it's not helping."

He finally lowered his phone to look back at her, eyes bright in his still-pale face. His amusement was beginning to irk her, the blatant disregard for nearly losing his life a mere day earlier. The fact that something had spooked him about the events, that change she'd noticed in the hospital, coming back to her now, because then, perhaps she'd have believed he was just rattled.

"What else is there?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I don't know."

"But you have an idea."

He shrugged, took a sip from the mug, then pushed his shoulders into the plush and took his attention away from her and back to the television screen, watching her recorded face thoughtfully.

"Pearce," she said sharply. "You came to me, remember. You wanted a deal. You wanted to work together."

A tiny shiver crossed his face, it looked a lot like disgust.

Unexpectedly, he leaned forward, set the mug down and fixed on her. "The men on the roof, where are they?"

"Two of them died, the others got away," she said.

He tapped on his phone without even looking down. A heartbeat later, her own phone announced with a low hum that she'd received a message.

"That's what I have on them. You go find them, you lean on them."

"With what men?" she asked, each word a precise emphasis, to get her point across.

He only shook his head, "The ones you still trust."

"I trusted King."

He hesitated, she could tell the calculations were running through his head. "I'm not telling you how to run the Club," he finally said. "I don't really care."

Frowning, she crossed her arms over her chest. "And what are you planning to do? Enjoying my hospitality some more?"

Again, he shook his head. "I just waited for you. I can't do anything here, I need more than a phone."

A tiny shard of relief splinted in her throat, but caution made her hesitate, the idea of an alliance with her repulsed him, if she pushed too hard for a confirmation, she'd simply drive him away.

"I'm sorry about drugging you," she said quietly.

His eyes narrowed slightly, suspicious of the change of tack and unsure what to make of it. She hadn't expected the hard set of his face to soften just slightly, a slow sag of his shoulders as if he'd suddenly remembered how weak he was.

"It's fine," he said, matching her tone. "You saved me. Thanks."

He sat up, flinched when the move tensed the tendons on his neck and agitated the fresh wound. His eyes fluttered closed for just a moment.

"Play it on the defensive," he suggested.

"Obviously," she agreed, smiling a little, hoping to connect with him in some way. "I'll keep you in the loop, if you do the same."

Wordlessly, he nodded.

She took a step forward and held out her hand. Pearce looked up at her hand for a moment, than up into her face, before he reached out and shook it. His hand was cold, brief, but unrelenting pressure on his bones. He tucked her a little closer and said, "You _don't_ know who you can trust."

The sudden sharp intensity in his tone, repeating what she'd said all along, and the hard, cold grip of his hand froze her to the spot for just a moment. He was giving her a warning, something more tanglible than what it appeared to be. He'd been careful not to react every time she'd brought it up, but he _was _spooked by something and it wasn't just Bratva, because he'd already known about them going in.

When he released her, Heather stepped back and regarded him in silence, trying to figure out what bothered her so. Somehow, he'd just seemed a lot more formidable as an opponent. Now, as her ally, he looked much more like a tired, ageing man who had to have his life saved by his enemy.

* * *

Lagrange Point was built on a foundation of several blocks of Chicago School buildings, topped off by gleaming glass fronts, interspersed by cafés and eateries. It was home to some of the hottest IT startups in the city, from data security to social media, augmented reality and all manner of entertainment. Blume dominated the city, but under it's protective umbrella was enough room for smaller companies to strive and grow without direct supervision, allowing for some impressive leaps in creativity.

Pearce climbed out of the taxi in broad daylight, still a little shakier on his legs than he would've liked, but he doubted even Bratva was ready to start a firefight in such a public place. They weren't dug in deep enough to survive the backlash.

He crossed the street, glanced up along the front of the _Uplink ._ building, the small group of hipster-looking people out front who ignored him as he passed. He followed a small alley along the outside of the building to the delivery gate where a local catering company was just unloading stacks of organic lemonade.

A bored looking man was watching them while he smoked a cigarette, eyes squinted to narrow slits in the rays of bright sunlight flooding down past the surrounding buildings. Pearce's phone automatically scanned the place, identified the man and woman doing the delivery and ran a quick background check on them. The smoking man returned as [Peter Marsh, 37, Server Support Specialist, recently diagnosed with lung cancer]. He also got flagged immediately with numerous unpaid speeding tickets and a court summons.

When Marsh spotted Pearce he listlessly pushed himself away from the facade he'd been leaning on and sauntered past the parked van towards where a few steps led downward to a metal door.

Pearce stepped in close behind him and waited while Marsh lifted his head towards the camera to let it scan him. A small beep of denial could be heard.

"Fucking junk," Marsh complained, he withdrew, then stepped back into the camera to restart the scan. He was denied again.

Pearce patience drained out of him second by second, it was running on the same depleting energy as the rest of him. Making a low, irritated noise, he stepped forward, snatched the cigarette from Marsh's mouth and snapped it away.

This time, the scan completed successfully and the door unlocked, swung smoothly inward. Marsh held out his middle finger at the camera as he passed inside, Pearce followed silently.

It had been years since Blume had taken back the Bunker and plugged every privileged access Pearce and T-Bone had had established using the old ctOS centre there. They had, however, had enough time to backup the servers and move out with every last byte of valuable data that'd existed at the time. Storing all of it, though, maintaining it without manpower, space and energy consumption that'd left a million possible exploits open hadn't been feasible.

Instead of even trying, they cloned the contents of the servers and moved them into the spacious server room of niche IT company Uplink, carefully hidden in their network and their files. It was a setup with an expiration date, even if Pearce found someone reliable to replace Marsh. Eventually someone would come down here and count the things.

Pearce stopped and plugged his laptop in, then stepped back and sat down on the floor, legs extended out across the aisle with the laptop on his lap.

Marsh hung around for a moment, watching him. "So, like, you got suckered by a vampire or something?" he asked and laughed at his own observation. Pearce glanced up at him and Marsh shrugged.

"I got work to do," he said unimpressed. "You know where to find me."

He wandered off and left Pearce alone with the data.

Although the servers here held the same data they had in the Bunker, Pearce could access ctOS only through Uplink's own ctOS gateway. He'd long since established these privileges and because Uplink was a little more than a computer security company and a social media platform for IT people, it allowed him to dig fairly deep into some of ctOS' less public features.

Roche had rattled him when she mentioned the Merlaut. She could've been angling for a reaction and if it was true, Bratva — or whoever had had her killed — had done him a favour, but it hadn't sounded like she had just been guessing.

He'd killed everyone who'd been in involved in these events, but the longer he thought about it, the more obvious it became that just killing people didn't mean anything went away. Someone could've sat down and painstakingly puzzled it all together from the fragments floating around online and in the darknet, stashed away somewhat in Blume's servers. He'd come here to test the theory, if it was possible to reconstruct the events of 2012 without any prior knowledge. And if it would lead back to him.

It wasn't the most comfortable thing he'd ever done. It wasn't so much facing bad memories, but trying to block out his own knowledge to avoid bias that presented the problem.

Bratva had made it relevant, by bothering to investigate him as thoroughly as that. It's what you did, if you planned to con someone, you learned all the details about them you could find, figured out what made them tick and flinch. The blackmail material was useless today, knowledge about his and Damien's incursion in the Merlaut served no other purpose today than to intimidate him. To show that he couldn't keep secrets, no matter how irrelevant. If Bratva had entertained the thought of recruiting him, willingly or not, such insight might have been useful. Roche's words implied the idea had been dropped, but he wasn't sure he'd been a target in that warehouse and not just unlucky.

However, it revealed something else which he doubted Roche, or Bratva, had wanted to let him know. Everyone looking to make deals outside the law had some way to handle ctOS' ever present surveillance, but if Bratva had been able to dig this deep and find Pearce there, from before Lena died, they had access on a level the Club almost certainly lacked.

He was distracted when his phone buzzed and he picked it up to check. He monitored the media for anything related or interesting to him, it was never a bad idea to stay in the loop about what was going on.

_[Body found at Riverwalk] _a WKZ article said as he skimmed through the piece, he arched his brows. The body had been found this morning, presumably having been dumped the night before. The cops were uncharacteristically tight-lipped about it, but rumour said the dead was Teddy Mahoney, a Club member, nightclub manager and pimp. He'd crossed Pearce's attention when he first tried to dismantle the Club a year ago.

He was about to put the phone away when another message cropped up, tripping similar filters. A fight at a bar had prompted a police raid, leading to the discovery of a brothel housed in the bar's basement. Just a quick search confirmed what Pearce had already suspected: Mahoney had been managing the place.

Someone's boots scratched over the floor and a moment later, Marsh appeared with a bottle in his hand. Bright red liquid with a neon green straw sticking out.

"Thought you needed some sugar," Marsh said as he stepped over Pearce on his way to the door.

Pearce took the bottle, the same organic lemonade he'd seen unload earlier. Marsh kept walking, pulling out his cigarettes on his way outside.

"Marsh," Pearce called and the man stopped, turned back. "Are you sure you should smoke?"

Marsh shrugged, but the gesture was tenser than he might have liked.

"What's gonna happen? I get cancer?" he asked caustically.

Pearce pulled out the straw and tossed it aside, took a careful sip off the sweet liquid.

"What about treatment?"

For a moment, Marsh didn't seem to know what to say then, then his expression darkened. He took a step towards Pearce, stopped, but said, "Hey, here's the thing. Let's make that deal we have? You know, where I don't give a shit about what you do? Let's make that go both ways, okay? Better for everyone."

"If you're worried about money, I'm sure I can do something about that."

The expression on Marsh's face darkened more and for a moment he looked like he'd lost his cool, he even twitched half a step forward before he forced himself to relax.

"Laundering the money is already more effort than it's worth," he said. "Just drop it."

With the clear intention of giving Pearce no chance to continue the argument, Marsh turned around and left.

A little while later, Pearce heard him return, but Marsh picked a different route back to whatever job he was busy with. By then, Pearce was already immersed again in putting his own disgraceful history together, trying to look at it from the perspective of some Bratva hacker looking at the same information.

Bratva hadn't come to Chicago unprepared, they had done their homework, he guessed they had done this very same thing for every relevant Club member. It'd allow them to bribe or turn a lot of them, but if Heather's instincts were correct, than her own people had been betraying her in troves.

Teddy Mahoney must have been among those who refused, so he'd become a tool to damage the Club in another way. He'd been looking through the backlog of news tripping his filters, the war was already in full swing.

Taking another gulp from the soda, Pearce pulled out his phone and called T-Bone.

_"Whassup?"_

"Hey, I need DedSec to look into something for me."

_"Why do you only ever call if you want something?"_

Pearce hesitated for a moment, vaguely glad T-Bone couldn't see his face.

He sighed, "Look, if I have to ask DedSec directly they'll just make me jump through hoops and I'll have to deal with their avatar. It's annoying."

On the other end of the line, T-Bone snorted a laugh. _"It ain't that bad. They just want to play." _

"Well, they got you to play with," Pearce said. "Bratva is going for a hostile takeover of the Club and it's looking… suspicious."

_"Big shark trying to eat slightly less big shark, nothing suspicious about that," _T-Bone remarked.

Pearce didn't answer immediately. "Not that part. But the Club has its ways, they shouldn't be going down at the rate they are."

_"Right, so what are you thinking?"_

"Is it possible Bellwether was used? To turn Club members?"

_"Hmm," _T-Bone made and Pearce could practically see him comb through his beard with his fingers while he was thinking. _"Bellwether doesn't work very well on specific groups. It just throws a wide net and enough people get caught in it, that's what Bellwether was. Pretty good for rigging general elections." _

"Rushmore was targeted," Pearce pointed out.

_"A very public person, it's easy to feed him the right kind of information. Criminals, at least the moderately smart ones, they won't be out in the open like that. Bellwether can't work with insufficient data, someone would have to do the legwork first. But I could be wrong, that code's from hell if I've ever seen it." _

"Can you look into it?"

_"It'd be easier if I was actually there." _

"There's a DedSec cell right here," Pearce smirked a little. "You think they're gonna say no if the great Raymond Kenney asks for their help?"

_"There's no reason for that tone." _

"What tone?"

_"The mocking one," _T-Bone growled a little.

"Oh, _that _one? I thought it was the other one."

_"You're in a good mood. How's that?" _

"Anaemia," Pearce deadpanned. He took a breath. "So, are you helping or not?"

_"Oh I'm helping, but I make no promises, you hear me?"_

"Loud and clear, despite the beard."

_"That tone again… I'll get back to you. Or maybe I'll let you talk to an avatar." _

"Too kind," Pearce chuckled despite himself and hung up.

* * *

What Pearce had had no intention of telling Heather was that he kept regular tabs on many prominent Club bosses and other prominent figures. Even with ctOS, it wasn't possible to keep them all in his sight at all times, but he did have an eye on them.

When he got home from Uplink, he sat down in front of his computers and began looking at what Jacob King had been up to the last few days. The man owned a rather roomy condo in Mad Mile, but he regularly cropped up all across town, often spending his days down at the Wards and Brandon Docks. It made sense, if, like Herrick, he was responsible to keep the gangs in line and handle all of the more hands-on dealing the Club engaged it. For the high-profile events, the Club tended to hire Taurus, so King wasn't around downtown too much.

Movement profiles alone wouldn't reveal much, at any of the locations King frequented Bratva could've approached him, but Pearce filed that away for later. He wanted to know where King was _now _and that turned out to be harder to find than he'd expected. Like Heather said, King seemed to have vanished, he wasn't being picked up by any of his rigged surveillance cameras, most notably not by the one outside his own apartment building and his favourite pub. He was having an on-off relationship with a neo-burlesque performer calling herself Noire, but Pearce filter hadn't logged King neither near her home nor the theatre she worked at.

Theoretically, it was possible King was hiding out in some basement somewhere, or Bratva had seen him as a loose end to tie up and he'd reappear floating down the river soon enough. But Pearce didn't think both options were likely. If King had joined Bratva he would be too useful to discard this early on. He could have tried playing Bratva for his or Heather's gain, but from what Pearce knew about the man he wasn't smart enough to even try.

On a hunch, Pearce pulled up old footage of King, a shot of him outside his home when he'd glanced directly at the camera. Pearce ran Profiler over it.

[NO DATA]

Just to be sure, he tried with several other shots, but the result remained the same. Even more interesting, the data he'd logged about the snipers on the roof in the warehouse revealed pretty much the same result.

Cheating Profiler was a basic skill these days, but most criminals preferred to use a false identity over simply deleting themselves from the database. A failed identification could be just as suspicious as being correctly identified. King's public life was fairly waterproof, he didn't need to hide his face. King's absence from the Profiler database had to be recent.

Pearce picked up his phone and called Marsh at Uplink. He didn't like to involve him directly, but he wasn't in the mood for another trip there. Marsh sounded moody on the phone, but at least he followed instructions. The Bunker servers held an old copy of the Profiler database, using it Pearce could feed King's biometric data back into his own search filters. It wouldn't work ctOS wide, he'd need direct access to Profiler's servers for that, but his own system could scan the feeds for King.

The upload would take at least an hour, though, so when he hung up on Marsh, Pearce dropped the phone and allowed himself a moment of rest. He rubbed a hand down his face, pressed the heel of his hand over an eye.

He didn't want to consider why Bratva had invested so much time in figuring out his involvement with the Merlaut, but he couldn't help thinking of what T-Bone had said. Bellwether wasn't working very well on targets unless it was fed with specific information beforehand. It _was _rather like a mark in a con or the target of a hit. You needed the details. If someone wanted to know what made Aiden Pearce, the vigilante of Chicago, tick, looking back at the Merlaut probably was very educational.

He pulled his hands away from his face and shoved his chair back, let it rotate away from the desk and he got up. Night had crept in while he'd been working, dipping the pitch-black surface of the lake into the same colour as the sky, muddied by a thin veil of clouds.

Without switching the lights on, he wandered into the kitchen and picked up a bottle of beer he took back with himself into the living room. Swiping his phone from his desk he took it back to the couch with him, but didn't immediately take his gaze away from the view outside the windows.

Had Bratva targeted him with Bellwether? And if they had, how would he even tell?

Sipping the beer, he let his head drop back against the whispering leather of the couch. Assuming Bratva had enough influence on Blume to make Bellwether work for them, they had used it to make Club members amendable to whatever offers Grisha made them. It'd explain why a man like King, with no reason for disloyalty had apparently changed sides from one moment to the next. Heather didn't know any of it, but her instincts were telling her her people were deserting her. She sensed things falling apart, he had no reason to distrust her about it.

So, he thought, if Bratva wanted to turn him against the Club, it hadn't worked. He felt no desire to turn against Heather, at least not yet and not for Bratva. He'd gone in fully intending to help her while Grisha's incursion lasted, so either Bellwether hadn't worked… or this was exactly the reaction he was supposed to have. Perhaps his presence was expected to further destabilise the Club, perhaps it was just to lure him out of hiding and take him out alongside the Club.

Emptying the beer, he put the bottle away, then swivelled on the couch and stretched his legs out along its length. He should be hunting the men who attacked him, the urge was there, but his mind told him he had a few hours more to rest. It wouldn't do to stumble into them only to be too wasted to stand up to them.

Using the remote function of his phone, he turned up the heating in the room a little and let himself be dragged into sleep by the warmth.

* * *

Several days later, Pearce sat at a small table, in the darkened back of the room of the _Le Cabaret_, a glass of whiskey in front of him. He didn't pay the show up on the stage too much attention, focussed on his phone, cycling through the theatre's surveillance and people's unprotected smart devices to get a better idea of the place.

Heather's people had ransacked King's apartment and his regular haunts, they had been to the theatre, too, roughing up Noire, but she hadn't known anything.

Pearce hadn't shared how close he was on King's tracks, but he couldn't trust any Club members while Bellwether was still a possibility, but neither T-Bone nor DedSec had contacted him about it yet.

He'd been able to track King's location using the old Profiler version, though it hadn't been as comfortable as if he'd been able to use ctOS. His system wasn't powerful enough to monitor all feeds simultaneously, the way the Bunker had been able to do, but King had eventually made the mistake to fall back on old habits. He sat in the front row now, watching his girl's performance, though the tense set of his shoulders revealed he wasn't as relaxed as he pretended to be.

The theatre employed just one bouncer, who hung around the back of the room and the entrance, but it wasn't a strip club, despite some passing similarities, patrons here seemed generally better behaved and Pearce spotted a few more women in the audience than strip-club's were used to have.

Most modern phones had low-level stand-by which continued to run even when they were turned off, but King had been smart enough to keep his phone powered down and even removed the battery, making it impossible for Pearce to access it.

Noire's phone was active, but it was in her dressing room and contained nothing useful. She'd tried the last few days to reach King and had failed, so she almost certainly wasn't in on things.

When the show ended and Noire slunk off the stage, King immediately left his seat and hurried to the narrow door leading backstage. The bouncer twitched in his direction to stop him, seemed to recognise him and drew back again.

Pearce accessed Noire's phone and used it as microphone. There was a camera in her dressing room, but the view was distorted by some sheer, black fabric hanging in front of it. Even so, it was obvious she wasn't too happy about King vanishing without a word only to reappear without warning in the middle of a performance.

King did his best to appease her, arguing to give him a little more time until Grisha's hostile takeover was done and King didn't have to hide anymore.

"Where's your phone?" King asked sharply. Pearce sighed inwardly and a moment later, the connection to Noire's phone went dead.

The bouncer still hovered ominously, gaze watchful over the place. He didn't look like he was about to move any time soon, so Pearce picked through his phone to discover he was keeping in regular contact with other staff members to coordinate during the night. It was easy to fake a text from the lobby, making the bouncer leave.

With him gone, Pearce got to his feet and slipped through the door leading backstage. It led to a narrow hallway between the back of the stage and several doors set on the opposite wall. The already narrow space was littered with stage props, dimly lit so as not to ruin the show outside. It smelled of dust and sweat.

Striding along the hallway, Pearce took another look at Noire's dressing room. The fabric was still in place, but it was good enough. King's jacket lay on the floor, his gun holster dangled messily off the table while he and Noire seemed to have made up, at least judging by the fact that he'd hoisted her to the make-up table, impatiently fingering past her stage outfit and shoving his trousers down so he could rut into her.

Originally, Pearce had intended to track King's movements and see if he went anywhere useful, but without ctOS is was a hassle and it barely paid off. King frequented a safe-house in the Wards where he and his men seemed to be based. Pearce had logged their information, but he hadn't picked up any phones or other smart devices from the place. No cameras, either, nothing he could hack and look inside. Which meant it was time to involve himself personally.

King and Noire were absorbed in what they were doing and didn't notice at first when Pearce stepped into the room. King's back was to him anyway and Noire had her face buried in his shoulder.

Pearce sauntered a little closer, picked up King's gun and tossed it behind him, out of reach. The disturbance was enough to jolt the two of them, rocking to an abrupt and doubtlessly uncomfortable stop. Noire had better reflexes than her man, giving an outraged cry, she snatched up a hairspray bottle from her side and hurled it at Pearce. It missed by a mile, while Pearce pulled out his own gun.

King was half shoved off by Noire, half tumbling backward with his trousers still around his ankles. He tried to simultaneously pull up his trousers, go for his gun and shield his dick, with the predictable result that he succeeded at neither. Pearce flicked the safety of his own gun and the small sound made King stop, awkwardly clutching the hem of his trousers upward, while he tried very ineffectively to stare Pearce down.

"What the fuck do you want?" he asked with a growl, trying to make up for his unremarkable performance of just a moment before. He moved slowly and when Pearce made no indication to shoot him, King finally pulled his trousers up, regaining most of his composure once he was covered again.

"Answers," Pearce said.

Behind King, Noire had dropped to her feet and was slowly but surely edging towards his right. There was a shelf there, where the camera was, lingerie items and other clutter.

"Well, you're not going to get them," King said. "You know, I didn't think you'd be taking Heather Quinn's orders."

Pearce shook his head. "You're all the same to me."

"Actions speak louder than words. You're bringing me to her, aren't you?"

"Eventually, maybe," Pearce said lightly. "But first you'll have to deal with me. All you've got to do is tell me everything."

"Go to hell, Pearce."

Pearce sighed. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a pair of flexicuffs, looked over at Noire.

"You," he said and held them out to her. "Put these on him."

He saw something spark in Noire's gaze, enough to give him a warning half a second before she moved. With one hand reaching out for the cuffs, feigning complacency, her other hand dove into the shelf and pulled something out. Pearce snatched his hand away, brought the gun around and smacked it into the side of her face, knocking her aside. The pepper spray slipped from her hand and Pearce lunged forward, caught it and snapped it around just in time to spay it into King's face, who'd used the moment to try and jump him.

King flinched and howled, but he was military trained, knew he needed to keep going. Rather than drop back, he simply maintained his direction, trying to grapple Pearce, but he lacked both the coordination and the strength to actually tear him down. Pearce gripped his neck, pushed him forward and slammed his knee upward into King's stomach. The man's grip scrambled for a hold on Pearce, but Pearce simply stepped away from it, let King drop to the floor.

Noire had pulled back from them, gaze flitting around the room, clearly looking for another weapon to use. Pearce stepped over King, gripped Noire and fitted the flexicuffs on her, kicked her feet away from under her and used a second pair on her feet while she was still disoriented.

Then he went and picked up King, dragged him to the back of the room and hung him over the sink there.

King growled insults, but didn't try to attack again and seemed rather glad for the opportunity to cool his burning eyes.

Pearce had caught a whiff of the pepper spray as well, making his eyes water a little. He wiped an arm over his face, braced himself and returned to Noire. He picked up the chair from the dressing table, set it down close to her and dropped himself into it.

"What are you going to do?" she sneer, struggling against her bonds.

"Neveah," he said, using her real name. "I can tell you don't know what it's about. Trust me when I say you don't wanna to know. So… how much do you want to keep quiet about it?"

She snorted and tossed her head back, fake, baroque curls flying out of her face.

"What about Jake?" she asked.

"Come on, you don't really care," Pearce glanced over at King, who was still watering his eyes, but giving a blurry glare in Pearce's direction at the mention of his name.

Pearce looked back at him plaintively when he said, "He likes you a lot more than you like him. The only reason you keep him around is because he's good for the money. He doesn't understand your art, doesn't explain what he's doing and the sex is bad. And sometimes maniacs break into your dressing room and tie you up. How much do you want?"

She still glared at him, but the anger was beginning to fade. He'd seen her bank statement, she was roughly breaking even each month, costumes and make-up eating up anything she earned, even with King's subsidy. It looked like King was keeping her on a short leash, making sure she didn't go anywhere without him.

"One million dollars," she said, trying hard not to show a triumphant grin.

Pearce started laughing before he could stop himself, then toned it down into a darkly amused chuckle.

"Yeah, no, I'm going to do you a favour," he said. Tapped on his phone for a moment, then turned it over for her to see. "I've set up a eRiches account for you and linked it to your bank account. I'll transfer two grand to it each month for a year. That way, you don't have to answer probing questions by the IRS and it's more than King was giving you."

"For a year? And then?"

He grunted, "I'm sure you'll find someone else."

He took the phone back and fixed her. "Or I can just snap your neck right here," he offered earnestly.

She wasn't quite sure he'd do it, but the frown in her pretty face deepened markedly. She tightened the corners of her mouth and then said, "Okay, no, don't. I'll take the money."

"I'm serious," Pearce said. "No one hears of this, or money will be the least of your problems."

Some small spark of defiance simmered in her gaze, but her behaviour had changed immediately when payment had been mentioned. She seemed smart enough to keep her mouth shut about it all.

Pearce returned to the back of the room, tied up King, then dragged him along out of the dressing room and to the car parked behind the theatre, where he stuffed him into the passenger seat.

"You're making a mistake," King said.

Pearce took his time before he replied, pretending to be concentrated on driving. Eventually, he said, "How so?"

King laughed and shifted in his seat, Pearce glanced at him and saw a smug smile spread across the other man's face, made even less pleasant by his red eyes and the inflamed skin around them.

"You'll find out," he said. "Oh yeah, you will."

* * *

_End of _Perfect Play – Part 2_

* * *

_Reference:_

_Lagrange: _from Lagrangian Point, here used as the name for a neighbourhood in the Loop. There's no in-game or real-life equivalent.

_eRiches:_ like coin, but fictional

_Uplink:_ originally a game by Ambrosia, used in Brilliancy as an IT company, it hosts the Grid

* * *

**Author's Note: **Obviously the warning is about King flashing his junk, but I've just realised Aiden's probably naked after he takes off the hospital gown and goes to play with his, uh, baton… I hope I squicked no one.


	75. Perfect Play - Part 3

**Author's Note:** I've said this before, but if you absolutely _must _shoot at Aiden Pearce, for fuck's sake _don't miss._

**This chapter's ongoing typo: **I wonder, is it Faraday pooch? Or Faraday porch?

**Notable characters: **Victoria Vanna is mentioned in Femme Fatale, she's in charge of the Club's human trafficking and forced prostitution.

* * *

**_Perfect Play – Part 3**

* * *

Pearce rifled through King's phone leisurely. He sat leaned back on the toilet lid with one leg extended and resting on the rim of the bathtub in front of him, keeping the shower curtain pulled down to shield against the spray as King thrashed helplessly in the tub.

With his legs hoisted up and tied to the water tap, King could just about keep himself from drowning while the water spilled out over the side, washed over his face by the waves he himself created. If he kept still, Pearce assumed he could probably keep his nose above water and breath a little easier, but the fight wasn't out of him yet.

For now, his phone was by far the more interesting thing anyway. While it was a common Risu smartphone model, an app had inserted itself into its OS. The implementation seemed clever, but Pearce couldn't be entirely sure of it, because the app was in Russian and lacked language options. There were only so many ways to code this sort of thing, so Pearce could make some sense of it, but manipulating it would be a lot more difficult. King's phone had never been turned off, it merely masked its signal in a way Pearce wasn't used to look for, making it practically invisible to all his usual scans. He'd had the suspicion that something of the sort was going on, but he'd not found anything with the bomb maker, she'd been using a normal phone for some reason, which was why he'd been able to find her at all.

It explained how Bratva had been able to operate in Chicago completely under the radar and the seeming absence of communication between King and his men or King and his Bratva contacts.

A particularly hard lurch by King was followed by loud chink and a grinding sound, making Pearce look up. King had managed to pull the tap out of the wall by an inch, making the old tiles crumble. Thinking he was getting somewhere, King renewed his struggle with vigour, yanking at the tap. Pearce could tell it would take King an hour or more to actually free himself and if he did, he'd probably just drown anyway since he couldn't support himself with his hands.

Pearce ignored him, checked out his contacts and recent activities. King didn't have an Invite account of his own, but seemed to frequently log on to Noire's. He was a regular on the Grid, as could be expected from a man with his job, but his digital footprint was generally small. It didn't look like it'd be enough for Bellwether to work with. King had several Digital Trips saved on his phone, one which Pearce hadn't seen before called 'Unmade', it was clearly King's favourite past-time.

There were no suspicious Russian names in the contacts, even at a first glance, Pearce recognised many King had been talking to, but it didn't mean he wasn't in regular contact with some of Grisha's people. Pearce himself used an app that deleted most of his messages after they'd been read and prevented phones from saving his contact information. No doubt Bratva would have access to something similar. Perhaps he could reconstruct some of it once he got home.

It'd take some time to adapt his programmes to scan for this signal while piggybacking onto ctOS, then he could track anyone with a phone like this. In fact, once he cracked it, it'd be easier to track them, because no one outside of Bratva was likely to be using this particular signature, they wouldn't be able to hide in the white noise.

Without being able to check for a covert tracker, Pearce wasn't going to take any chances with King's phone. He transferred some of the data to his own, then slipped King's phone into a Faraday pouch before he put it aside.

He got up and pulled the shower curtain aside and looked down over King's soaked form. When he saw Pearce, he struggled harder, used precious air to gargle obscenities.

Unimpressed, Pearce reached out and turned the water off, then flipped the lever to let enough water drain that King's face was out of the water.

"Fuck you!" King shouted. "I'll rip your limbs off one by one! I get out of this fucking tub I'm going to fucking kill you!"

Pearce regarded him silently. King should've had training in withstanding torture and know better than to engage the man on the other end at all. It just opened you up for further prying, but as Heather had pointed out, King wasn't the brightest tool in the shed and it'd been years since he'd been anywhere near military drill. People got soft far too quickly.

"Let's talk about Bratva," Pearce said.

"Eat shit you fucking piece of…!"

Pearce put his hand on top of King's head and pushed him under water, he gargled in shock, swallowing desperately when a gush of water filled his mouth. Pearce held him under patiently, gaze wandering around the room, watching the yellowed tiles and old layer of grime there.

He tightened his grip in King's hair and pulled him up again. Sputtering, gasping for air, King couldn't pick up his tirade immediately.

"…sick fuck asshole…"

Pearce pushed him down again, kept him there for a moment longer, right until King really increased his struggles, then Pearce yanked him up again.

Pearce said, "You're an idiot. You know how I know?"

"I'll rip your balls off and feed them to you!"

"Free piece of advice," Pearce continued calmly. "You should be buttering me up. Because if you don't, I'll just leave you here with the water running. Do you think I can't find your buddies in the Wards? Maybe I should go talk to them."

King's self control was already rattled and for the moment, he was just trying to get as much air as he could, he wasn't saying anything this time, just watched Pearce with anger and panic warring visibly in him.

"I don't really get it," Pearce said. "You got a good job with the Club, why change sides?"

King growled something inaudible, which might have been another insult, but the moment Pearce tightened his grip on his head again, King shouted, "It's obvious! Just look! It's all falling apart!"

"What is?"

King looked at him as if the question confused him. "What? The Club, of course. Things haven't been the same since Lucky died. It's… a sign of the times, it's evolution, man. And I don't want to go extinct with Heather Quinn."

Pearce watched him, kept his thoughts from floating to the surface of his expression, he didn't want to give King anything to latch on to. The truth was, Heather had done a good job at keeping things together. Unlike Lucky, she'd been faced with her organisation being left in ruins three times in short succession. The deaths of Lucky and Niall had damaged the Club and she'd only narrowly avoided a similar fate just a year ago. He could imagine some Club members getting fed up with the ups and downs, but events had actually washed King to the top of the food chain. Whatever position Bratva had promised him — if they didn't just kill him when they were done — it wouldn't be nearly as well-paying or as secure as the position he now had.

"What gives you that idea?" Pearce asked.

"It's obvious," King said. "Just look. It's obvious."

Something about the repetition was odd, King wasn't the most eloquent man in existence, but it didn't seem like something he'd use as a catch-phrase.

"Tell me, how did you meet with Bratva?"

King's brows creased in new confusion, then blinked up at Pearce.

"It's…" he started, then fell silent again, collected himself and spat, "What's it to you anyway? How's it feel to take Heather Quinn's orders, huh?"

Pearce shrugged. "I don't know, why don't you tell me?"

King laughed, "I can't remember. Damn bitch."

Pearce sat back on the toilet, hands dangling between his legs as he looked at King.

"So what's the plan?" Pearce asked. "Grisha waltzes in, ruins the Quinns' business and takes over? Blume stands back like a beaten dog and CPD aren't invited? That the idea?"

"The Club's finished. Just look at you, they couldn't even take one asshole down, times are going to change with Bratva. I dunno if you're religious or anything, but you should better start praying."

"Hmm."

Pearce thought about it for a moment, then got up and turned the water back on as he left the room. King shouted new insults after him before he ran out of air to do it, splashing and choking helplessly in the bath.

Wandering a little further down the empty hallway, Pearce called T-Bone.

_"Nothing," _T-Bone said when he answered. _"There are some… well… smelly connections if you know what I mean… between Blume and some Bratva bigwigs, but we couldn't find the big obvious folder labelled 'Bellwether for Russian Takeover of Chicago'."_

"In that case it can _obviously_ not have happened," Pearce remarked dryly. "Something's up, T-Bone. I feel it. I just had a chat with this Club boss turned traitor…"

_"Ah, is he the background noise?" _

"Don't ask."

_"Oh, no, I won't. But, I can only tell you, we found nothing. Maybe Blume's running something on a closed network we can't get to from here. You'll have to get in yourself. I can put you in contact with some people from DedSec who could help you out." _

Pearce considered it. Until he knew what was going on, bringing anyone new in could be risky, especially when brainwashing was going on somehow, because it completely changed the rules.

"I'll think about it," he said.

_"It sounds like you're having some trouble, do you need backup?"_

"No, I'm fine. You just do your thing in San Francisco."

_"How about you head down here and catch a bit of sunshine?"_

Pearce chuckled at the thought of just leaving Chicago behind in the middle of a mob war. It would certainly be something neither Heather nor Grisha expected him to do.

"Some other time, maybe."

_"Hey, it's an open invitation." _

"Thanks."

He hung up and stepped forward to the balustrade, leaned against it while he was considering his next moves. There was a good chance Bratva knew how to track King's phone, so they could already know about this location and he'd need to move King somewhere else or hand him over to Heather's tender care. Perhaps she had the patience to get something useful out of him, but Pearce didn't think there was much to learn from him. He either really didn't have any useful information due to some brainwashing, even if it wasn't Bellwether, or because Grisha had never actually told him anything. Both were possible and if either was true for King, it would be true for his men. It looked more and more like Bratva was letting Heather's own people do the dirty work for them while keeping themselves in the shadows. In light of this, bringing in Roche for the bombs might have been a tactical mistake, not only had it roused Pearce's interest, it had also tipped Heather off to something going on within the ranks of the Club.

Pearce could only guess, but he knew Grisha was a new arrival in Chicago, perhaps the plan hadn't been his and Grisha was known to like the big gesture.

His phone buzzed and he held it out in front of his phone. It was an unknown number, but his app kicked in and traced the call for him automatically, resolved the number to its owner: Iain Darcy.

"What?" he answered.

Iain took a second longer to react, perhaps a reaction to the hostility in Pearce's voice.

_"It's Iain," _he said.

"I know. What?"

_"Heather asked me to make an appointment for you for a check-up at Holy Well."_

Pearce frowned, not quite sure what to do with that information. On reflex, he brought a hand up and patted the bandage on the side of his neck.

"I don't need a check-up."

_"The doctor said you shouldn't…" _

"Is that the only reason you called?"

Again, Iain paused for a little longer than necessary. Pearce thought he'd got to know the man fairly well a year ago and it was an easy guess to make that Iain was confused about what to make of Pearce's sudden reappearance in his and Heather's affairs. Pearce had been wrong about Iain, too, about the depth of his devotion to Heather. Now, Iain was clearly afraid of Pearce's retaliation against him and Heather, but Iain didn't know what to do about it.

_"Are you making any progress on finding King?" _

Pearce felt a smile ghost across his face, listening to the ongoing splashing just behind him, but let the expression fade before he said, "How bad is it at your end?"

_"What do you mean?" _

"Teddy Mahoney and at least seven other high-ranking members are dead. Your brothels and casinos are getting raided. I heard about another raid on the port, seized a shipment of stolen art," Pearce counted off the events that had happened in the last few days. "Three bomb threats against your nightclubs, plus a very suspicious fire in another one. An attempted hostile takeover of Kessler. Taurus losing the security contracts for the Risu stores. Do you want me to go on?"

_"You… know all of that?" _

"Why would you think I don't?"

_"Look, it's not good. You can tell. But… it's not bad, either. It's pinpricks. Big pinpricks, but nothing irreversible. The problem is, we can't fight. We don't know where the enemy is. Who of our own people will suddenly turn around and backstab us. You know something about that, do you?"_

"I know it's not what I thought," Pearce conceded.

_"What's that supposed to mean?" _

"Where are you right now?"

Iain hesitated, uncomfortable with giving out this type of sensitive information on the phone, but he must have remembered who he was talking to.

_"Sinclair Plaza, Heather owns a penthouse. It's under an independent security contractor, Sentris, unaffiliated seems safer these days. Are you… coming by?"_

"I know you have hackers working for you."

_"Yes?"_

"Who's your best?"

_"Uh… Lucas D'Souza, used to be DedSec, worked for Blume for a while, got fired for his extracurricular activities. Works for us now, good contacts to everyone." _

"Do you trust him?"

_"Is that a trick question?"_

Despite himself, Pearce chuckled a little. "Alright, under normal circumstances, would you trust him?"

_"Yes, definitely. He's annoying as fuck, but he's got talent and a lot of little in-roads into all sorts of systems. " _

"Does he have a setup?"

_"I guess?"_

Pearce sighed. He could use T-Bone's contacts, but he wasn't quite sure they would be any more trustworthy. DedSec's agenda made them morally inflexible. They wouldn't want Bratva in Chicago any more than Pearce, but even he found helping the Club hard to swallow. Asking DedSec to do the same, even with T-Bone's backing didn't seem very promising.

"Tell him to expect me, I'll see him tonight."

_"What about King?" _

"Hmm," Pearce grunted and glanced over his shoulder at the bathroom door. "You can come pick him up. You should hurry, he's getting tired."

* * *

Gunshots pattered in the distance, the sound carried on the gentle spring wind, too far away to be cause for alarm. The area was disputed territory since the Viceroys had to give ever more ground against both Red Serpents and the Corlanders. No one was safe, which was why this neighbourhood was shuttered up tight by anyone still forced to live there. Though the thin walls of the ramshackle houses did little to keep the noises of television and music and fights from spilling out into the street.

This house looked like it had been ransacked a while ago, part of the wall ripped out, apparently with the help of a chainsaw. Pearce eyed it for a moment by the brightness of distant street-light. He adjusted the strap on his shoulder to make sure nothing would hinder him. He hit the wall running, transferring his momentum upward before gravity had a chance to realise what he was doing. He found purchase on a narrow windowsill with one foot, a nook in the wall with his hand and used the swing to pull himself up on the roof.

It was sagging a little in the middle, groaned unhappily under his weight, but held steady when he set his feet carefully where the beams ran below. He circled the house until he reached the other side where the flat roofs of two dormer windows looked out over the neighbourhood.

He set up on the roof of one of the windows with an unobstructed view of the house where King's men were hiding out. Opened his laptop by his side and put up ctOS camera feeds in split screen to keep the house under watch and get a look inside.

He'd spent the better part of the day to set this up, but now that it was all coming together, it was a sleek programme running in his mind, all the separate parts coming together.

King's friends were still lying low, he hadn't been gone for long enough to make them nervous and Pearce had no way to gauge the Russian's response and whether they knew or cared about their henchmen.

Using the Russian phone signal, he determined that all men were in the house. He hadn't been able yet to figure out a way to crack the phones remotely, but he'd have access soon enough. For now, knowing they were there was all he needed.

Of the ten men who'd been on the roof in the Wards, three had been taken out by Heather's bodyguards, the other seven were now scattered around the house. Profiler failed to identify them, but running the old version worked just fine and Pearce had made sure he didn't get the wrong ones.

Through an upstairs window, he spotted a man sprawling on his bed, his phone and his chest. He was either asleep or listening to music.

Jumping to another camera, he found another man in another bedroom, cross-legged on his bed, also playing with his phone. In the downstairs living room, three sat on the couch, watching some reality tv programme with a crate of beer for company.

In the kitchen, another just retrieved a bowl from the microwave and poked it with a fork, looking rather unenthusiastic about it.

"Help is on the way," Pearce muttered, switched out of the camera and checked the ETA of the pizza delivery he'd ordered for them. He was still missing one man, after all.

When the pizza arrived, the man who answered the door was visibly confused, argued for a moment, called at his buddies inside, but finally took the boxes with a shrug.

He went back inside, shouted. One of the men upstairs got up and went to the door and vanished from view only to reappear in the living room. Pearce didn't know where the last man had been, he couldn't see everywhere, but he appeared to claim some pizza.

The other one upstairs just lifted his head, shouted something, adjusted the plug in his ear and let himself drop back down.

Pearce watched them for a moment, cycled through the cameras again to make sure he hadn't missed anything. He'd considered simply blowing them up, lure them all into one room and fire a grenade into them, but he didn't want to risk damaging their phones.

He also didn't want it to be over too quickly and picking them off one by one wasn't even revenge, it was poetic justice.

Resettling on the shaggy roof, Pearce got in position behind his rifle, trained the scope on the upstairs window. With the suppressor on and at this distance, it was unlikely for anyone to hear anything other than the shattering of glass.

The man swam into his scope, still relaxed on the bed. The angle wasn't perfect, but the distance was good and there was almost no wind he needed to compensate for.

Pearce flexed his finger down to the trigger, held his breath and fired. The recoil pushed into his shoulder and he lost sight of his target for a second. Focussing it back down, he saw he'd hit the man bullet had torn through the soft tissue under his jaw and into his head. Save for being rocked by the impact, he hadn't even moved.

Pearce glanced to the laptop and the camera feeds. The men in the living room had noticed the noise, he could tell by their body language, but they didn't seem suspicious yet. After some back and forth, one of them got up and walked up the stairs to check.

Pearce leant back behind the scope and waited, finger resting on the trigger guard. He had a moment of perfect tranquility, aware of the spring air on his face and the smell of spilled gasoline drifting up from the junker parked just below him. He heard the other gunshots from the gang war skirmish, it sounded like it was getting a little closer, but not so close it threatened to breach this intimate moment.

The man walked into the bedroom and startled, a moment of confusion he never recovered from because Pearce squeezed the trigger and watched as it ripped the man from his feet. He fell across the open doorway, so when the third man came to check, he was smart enough not to walk into the room.

Pearce refocussed on the living room window, had just enough time to aim at the man sitting on the couch in the moment it took the warning shout from above to make them scatter.

Sunset was beginning to make the light uncertain, rays cutting across his vision. The men inside the house had enough sense to turn off the television and all other light sources, hoping for a little extra cover as he dropped from Pearce's limited field of vision.

Patiently, Pearce kept the rifle trained on the downstairs windows, one after the other until he picked out the target of a man leaning a little too far past the edge of the window and searching the outside for the unknown attacker.

Three men left and Pearce guessed this would be the moment the survivors would decide beating it out of there would be their best option. Perhaps they'd even called for backup, but Pearce had no way to check or listen in. Either way, he had a few more minutes alone with the remaining three targets.

He put the rifle down and stood up, barely wasted any time on mapping out the route across the neighbourhood. He jumped from the roof to an awning, the cheap plastic cracked, but held long enough for him to jump to the ground. He rolled back to his feet and took off running.

The way to the safe-house was an uneven maze of trash-strewn backyards, ramshackle shacks leaned against houses and debris from where houses had collapsed. It'd slow down another man, but Pearce had done this a thousand times, since his childhood, running an obstacle course like this was second nature.

It took him less than five minutes to reach the house, veering off into the shadow of a garage wall, Pearce watched as one of the men appeared in the doorway, edging forward carefully.

If they had any sense, they'd stay put and wait for backup. It stood to reason that if a sniper stopped shooting at you, it's because he had something else planned.

Well, Pearce thought, looks like these guys weren't going to benefit from the lesson.

He crouched down and followed the outline of the garage until he was out of the man's direct line of sight, then vaulted over the fence, hit the ground running until he reached the house's wall and followed it back to the door.

A screen on one side allowed Pearce to get close and he didn't wait for the other man to move further — or back. Pearce drew his gun, pushed himself away from the wall so it wouldn't hinder him and fired through the thin laminated wood of the screen, three shots on different heights to account for the other man having changed his position since Pearce had memorised it.

A short yell followed, then a curse losing its fury almost immediately. Pearce turned around and ran back along the side of the house, used his gun to smash in the living room window and climb inside.

"Shit!" someone shouted and Pearce spotted the two remaining men in cover, facing the door. Without aiming, Pearce fired in their general direction to deter them from taking him out while he was in the open. He dropped behind the couch for a moment, it was useless as cover, but they couldn't get a clear shot fast enough.

Regaining his feet on the other side, Pearce swung the baton when the bullets started to rip the couch apart. Pearce shot the first man, hit him in the shoulder and yanked his gun-arm away with a shout.

The other man was too close, Pearce crashed the length of the baton against his throat, than snapped it down on his forearm, hard enough to crack bone. The gun fell uselessly from his hand.

Pearce stepped over him to deal with the other one, who'd recovered from the shot enough to try and hammer and elbow into Pearce's turned back.

Pearce deflected the move by simply stepping out of his reach, swung the baton in low arch against the man's legs to make him topple forward. Pearce twisted behind him, brought the gun up and shot him in the back of the head.

He brought the gun back up and fired at the other man, who was scrambling for his gun with his good hand. One bullet punched through his chest, he took the second in his face, splattering brain matter over the wall and doorway behind him.

"You sick fuck," someone growled.

Pearce drew back into the comparative security of the corner by the front door, until he could get a look at who'd spoken.

The man he'd shot through the screen pulled himself along the short hallway. By the looks of him, one of Pearce bullets had hit his shoulder, the other had gone into his stomach. Blood drenched his shirt and the hand with which he was holding his guts in.

He'd picked up his gun again, but held it only in a limp hand by his side.

Pearce holstered his gun as he stepped out of the shadows and into the doorway to watch the man's slow advance. He remembered his name, Hunter Davis, numerous convictions for violent altercations. He'd spent as much time behind bars as he'd been outside.

"If you knew that," Pearce said. "You should've stayed out of my way."

"Well, fuck you," Davis spat. He hadn't stopped walking, though every step seemed heavier than the last. He faltered for a second and the gun slipped from his hand. He blinked, a mirthless laugh gargled from his throat.

Pearce watched him and let him come close, fixed him with his stare until the man's expression sobered. He laboured to a stop right in front of Pearce, so close Davis had to tilt his head back a little to look at him.

"Give me your best," Pearce offered, tone casual and self-assured. He wasn't surprised when Davis gave an enraged shout and drew the knife from the sheath at his belt.

He stabbed it low, at Pearce's flank, despite his state, he was fast, but the look in his face betrayed that he'd never really expected the knife to connect. Pearce bent just far enough to the side, the knife only snagged his shirt, than knocked the hilt of the baton on the man's wrist. Pearce switched the baton to his other hand and twisted the knife from the other man's loosening grip. With the same, fluid motion, he pulled the knife back up and slashed it across Davis' throat, then swung around behind Davis and used the knife to slice deep into the side of the neck, where the artery was.

Davis made a high-pitched sound in his throat, almost like surprise, bringing his hand up to clutch at his bleeding throat while his other still clutched his belly.

Pearce gave him a shove and the man toppled forward.

He kept moving for a little while on the floor, aimlessly crawling, then curling in on himself as his life bled out of him.

Pearce watched him, idly planning his next move, now that he was on the offensive. He brought up his hand to stroke lightly across the bandage on his own neck, then blinked irritably and took the hand down to shove it sullenly into the pockets of his jeans.

* * *

When the doorbell rang, D'Souza was in the middle of finishing a quest, he'd had to do some level-grinding until he was ready to take on the dungeon, so making it all the way to the last chamber and its boss battle was something he'd been eager to do all evening and no random doorbell was going to make him stop now.

It rang again and D'Souza hit pause reluctantly. He'd never get back into the flow of it now. He shuffled to the door, unhooked the latch and pushed the heavy sliding door aside.

D'Souza wasn't quite sure if Pearce announcing his arrival earlier had made him nervous or not. After all, the vigilante wasn't coming to hurt him, so there was nothing to worry about. However, like pretty much anyone with dirt on them he had spent some time checking behind him every so often, just in case Pearce was hiding in the shadows somewhere, waiting to bash them over the head. The man just seemed to function that way.

It didn't help that D'Souza had been one of the few people on the inside of Heather Quinn's plan last year, though he didn't really know how exactly it had gone down. He'd also seen the video of Vincent Fisher's demise and felt a little uneasy at the thought that it might eventually get a sequel.

So this was Aiden Pearce in the flesh, D'Souza looked him over. Not like he could stop himself, all things considered, and if Pearce wanted to take offence at it, D'Souza decided he'd do some grovelling and hope to get out of it.

Pearce looked pale against the stark black of his T-shirt and lightweight jacket. The collar didn't reach high enough to cover the patch against the side of his neck. The strap of a messenger bag lay across his chest. He was half a head taller than D'Souza, somewhat slimmer than he appeared in video — like most people, D'Souza thought to himself. Bags under his eyes made him look older, skin dry and cracked, green eyes narrowed in impatience or annoyance.

"Holy shit," D'Souza muttered. "Darcy said you'd be coming, but… man, I didn't believe him."

Pearce shrugged, then suppressed a sigh and said, "Can we get started?"

D'Souza jolted out of the way and Pearce stepped into his spacious loft apartment. It was on the good side of gentrification, D'Souza liked to say, but the longer he was away from DedSec, the less it bothered him. He earned some good money with the skills and talents he had, there shouldn't be any shame in enjoying it.

In the time D'Souza pushed the door back closed behind Pearce, the vigilante had made a beeline for his computers, lined up along the length of his apartment. It was an impressive setup, if D'Souza could say so himself. Worth more than the whole damn building.

He really didn't like it when Pearce pulled a chair close and sat down, hand on the mouse and the keyboard as if he owned the place. He'd dropped the messenger bad on the table beside him.

"Hey!" D'Souza shouted before his self-preservation got around to check the response. "That's just rude! Can you at least talk to me first?"

Surprisingly, Pearce stopped with what he was doing, leaned back away from the desk, gave D'Souza a long look, but then nodded. He didn't relent the chair, but he reached for his bag and pulled out a pile of phones, each neatly packaged into a Faraday pouch.

"What do you need me to do?" D'Souza asked. He rifled through the phones briefly, then left them to find himself a second chair.

"The phones belonged to people who switched sides, so it's obvious they must have been in contact with Bratva, my guess would be their contacts use self-deleting messages, but maybe we can reconstruct something."

"That's all?" D'Souza asked. Self-deleting messages were a bitch to reconstruct, but it wasn't particularly hard to do.

Pearce fixed him sharply and D'Souza wasn't entirely sure how he should react under his gaze, his mind groping for something to say that'd lighten the sudden frosty mood.

"Bellwether," Pearce said, clearly watching D'Souza's face for a reaction.

"Brainwashing software," D'Souza answered, because he really didn't know what Pearce wanted to hear. "Neat shit if you've got it working for you."

"It's just an algorithm," Pearce shrugged. "It's not hard to write, it's the information input that makes it dangerous. And Blume has all the information it needs. Bratva has the means to buy in, but I'm not sure Bellwether could do this."

D'Souza must have made a particularly stupid expression, because Pearce said, "You do realise what's going on?"

D'Souza didn't answer immediately. He didn't _know _exactly, in the sense that no one had actually said anything specific to him, but he paid attention to what was going on in Chicago, not just on the surface, but underneath it. In the last few days, the Club had been hit by a perfect storm of minor problems. A raid here, a failed deal there, nothing that'd be powerful enough to disrupt the overall business on it's own, but these things added up. The moment Pearce had mentioned Bellwether, things suddenly made sense. All these Club bosses doing stupid shit, or failing or switching sides, D'Souza hadn't understood why it was happening until then.

"You think Bratva brainwashed Club members?"

Pearce took a breath, "They did _something, _but I'm not sure it's Bellwether." He glanced over the phones. "These people, they aren't targets for Bellwether, their digital footprint is too small and unreliable. Bellwether is written for normal people, not the mob."

D'Souza followed Pearce's pensive gaze over the phones.

"So…" he started. "I'm also looking for a pattern."

"Yes, if there's one," Pearce said.

"Have you ever _met _Heather Quinn? That woman's not going to fuck up on that scale."

Pearce's expression hardened and D'Souza could tell Pearce had some less than charitable thoughts just then, but the vigilante only said, "No, she's not."

* * *

D'Souza spent the better part of the night breaking into one phone after the other. They all had different levels of security, from completely unsecured to someone using a retina scan app. Thankfully the latter was just some cheap app download from a questionable source and D'Souza knew how to crack it.

He'd withdrawn to the couch and left the desk to Pearce somewhat grudgingly. He didn't like having a stranger, any stranger, use his system like this, but he had a feeling trying to argue wouldn't go over well.

Pearce maintained a frosty professionalism that didn't invite any chatter on D'Souza's part, no companionable offer of putting on music or making coffee or ordering some food. Pearce didn't seem to care.

While D'Souza scoured the phone for anything useful, Pearce entertained himself with the programme that allowed the phones to hide their signals from ctOS.

"Did you know that there are only five 'real' Digital Trips?" D'Souza said, scrolling through the contents of yet another phone. "The guy who wrote them just disappeared and no one really knows. There are some knock-offs, of course, but they never seem to get it quite right."

Pearce grunted a vague affirmative and the chair creaked a little when he moved. D'Souza passed a glance over his turned back, tried to assess whether the man was annoyed or not.

"A friend of mine," D'Souza continued. "She couldn't handle it. Like, at all. Turned complete psycho and attacked her room-mate because she thought he was an alien or something. It's the loony bin for her now."

He paused for a moment.

"Did you ever try one?" he asked then.

"Once or twice," Pearce said, sounding disinterested and without turning around.

"What's it like?"

"You don't know?"

D'Souza gave a long suffering sigh. "Doesn't work for me. I get dizzy and then I throw up. Headaches for _days." _

"They work different on everyone," Pearce remarked.

"Yeah," D'Souza agreed. "Or not work at all. But that's funny, because they all got this same Trip on their phones. Called 'Unmade', never heard of that one before."

The chair creaked again, a little longer this time and D'Souza looked up to see Pearce had turned around completely. Reclining in the chair, one long leg extended he seemed to be glowering across the room like a big cat calculating its leap.

"It's on all of them?" Pearce asked.

"Yeah," D'Souza confirmed and frowned at Pearce's tone. "You think that means something?"

Pearce didn't answer immediately, hard features covered more in shadow than light from the computer screens at his back. D'Souza was about to say something to break the silence, but before he could make up his mind, Pearce slipped to his feet and crossed the room.

He picked a phone at random from the pile and dropped himself to the couch.

"Got an earplug?" he asked.

It took a moment before the command trickled through D'Souza's mind and another until he decided not to argue the point. He got up and went to his desk drawer to retrieve the plug. He handed it over to Pearce, hovered uncertainly in front of him.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" D'Souza asked. "If that's how they all got turned…?"

A smile split Pearce's expression for just a second. "That's not how any of these things work."

"Oh, that's good," D'Souza remarked, but stepped back and watched Pearce as he put the plug in and thumbed through the phone for the Trip. Then he settled himself a little more comfortably on the couch and closed his eyes.

* * *

The Trip drops him off on top of a rooftop at night. The cityscape around him is Chicago, but so subtly different he cannot put his finger on it before the fist smashes into his face and knocks him to the ground, tilting his view of the city.

Instinctively, he tries to roll away and back to his feet, but the world solidifies completely and he's tied to a chair, cuffs digging into his wrists. It takes him a moment to remember this is not real and the pain only imaginary.

A woman leans into his field of vision, flawless make-up on a face that doesn't quite look Chinese, curls of dark hair spill over her shoulders as she wraps her fingers around his jaw and tilts his head up to face her. Dark red lips peel away from sharp white teeth.

In a voice of smoke and velvet she says, "With us or against us?"

He shakes his head, more in confusion than denial. The Trip's plot muddles his thoughts, forces him to play along regardless of what he actually wants.

"Not asking again, lover boy," the woman says. "Say it."

He blinks past her and spots others, like him tied to chairs and knocked over to the side in various degrees of disarray. They are all dead, their heads resting in pools of blood. He guesses they gave the wrong answer.

"Say it," the woman whispers and leans even closer. The barrel of a gun presses against his temple and he struggles to remember it's just a game and he's playing it because he wants to.

"No," he says through bared teeth, because he can always come back and do it differently next time. Smiling, seductive, she pulls the trigger and there's an instant of absolute pain before the Trip fades out.

* * *

D'Souza's loft came only reluctantly back into focus, the younger man's worried face right above him and a particularly uncomfortable echo of sensation thrumming away in his left temple. None of the Trips are particularly enjoyable during failure, there was always a fairly good approximation of pain and death, but this one revelled in it, clearly trying to draw the sensation out for as long as possible.

"Are you okay?" D'Souza asked.

"Fine."

"Uh, bad trip?"

Pearce shook his head and pulled the plug from his ear. He'd take a look at the code before he let the Trip anywhere near his brain again, but he was definitely on to something.

The original Trips had been Defalt's brainchild, they had nothing to do with Blume or Bratva for that matter. What D'Souza had said was also true, no one had managed to recreate the total immersion effect that Defalt's work had achieved, but this Unmade was professional work. If anyone could do it, Russian hackers could. It'd be easy to put a more nefarious subliminal messages into something that was already intended as a mind-screw. All Bratva had to do was release it, sit back and let it run its course for a while and then move in when things were ready to drop into their lap.

Pearce dropped the phone and the plug on the table and got up.

"I said it's fine," he repeated because D'Souza hadn't stopped his hovering and he was entirely too close.

D'Souza drew back half a step, tried to cover for it with a shrug and a searching glance around his place. "So… what do you want me to do now?"

Pearce considered for a moment.

"Take a look at my work," he said, pointed with his chin towards the computers he'd been working on. "It needs to be implemented and patched into ctOS, do you have someone for that?"

"Patch ctOS? Did you really just say that?"

"Integrity checks will knock it out of the system within 24 hours, by then, I'll have location and number of all phones using this encryption. Do you have someone?"

D'Souza thought about it, pulling a grimace. "Yeah, I know someone who could do it, but it's not going to be cheap, it's a career ending move."

"Doesn't matter," Pearce said.

"Alright," D'Souza said and hesitated for another moment. "Uh, I don't think you've noticed, but you're bleeding."

For an insane moment, Pearce couldn't figure out why he should be bleeding from an imaginary gunshot, but then he remembered the actual injury on his neck. It had had a few days to heal, but he'd put a lot of strain on his body today. He patted the bandage on his neck for a moment, felt the hard patch where the blood had seeped into it.

"It's not that bad," Pearce decided, but got to his feet and went to pick up his own phone from the desk.

"You just keep going, I'll be back in a minute."

D'Souza's skeptical look trailed him outside, where the cool night-air hit him in the face like a physical blow.

The echo of the gunshot was still in his mind, for some reason he couldn't stop going over the lingering sensation it had caused. It made him want to get back inside, examine and experience it.

Obviously, if he gave the right answer, the woman wouldn't shoot him and he could continue, unravel the plot and maybe even spot its manipulation, though there was no guarantee things would be on the surface for him to see. It was interesting that the game required every participant to start out by betraying whatever side they were on or they couldn't progress at all. But that didn't quite seem to be the reason. He wanted to get back because… he didn't even know.

If that was brainwashing, it kicked in a whole lot faster than he'd thought. He'd need to be more careful in the future.

The question was, was this feeling of unease enough evidence that he'd found out what was going on with Club members deserting Heather Quinn in droves?

He breathed in the cool night air, mulling it over in his head, leaned his back against the dirt-stained wall by the door and pushed his head into the cold concrete. After a while, he took out his phone and checked if Iain's phone was on. It was set to sleep, but that wasn't a problem. Indeed, it was preferable. People tended to notice somewhat better if you hacked their phones while they held it in their hands.

Iain had the Unmade Trip on his phone, but logs revealed he'd accessed it only once and for barely five minutes, most likely because he got tossed out of the storyline the same way Pearce had. Unlike Pearce, Iain had either not had any desire to go back, or he simply hadn't got around to do it. It stood to reason that Iain wouldn't be susceptible to Bratva's manipulation, anyway, his devotion to Heather was running much deeper than most of her other people. Still, it was good to know Pearce wouldn't have to keep an extra eye on him in case he'd underestimated the power coercive power of the Trip.

After some more consideration, Pearce called Heather's phone instead of Iain's.

It was the middle of the night and it took long minutes until she answered, but her voice was crisp and awake.

"I think I got something," Pearce said, skipping any greeting.

_"I hope it's more useful than King," _she remarked. _"He's talking gibberish." _

Everyone subjected to too much torture talked gibberish, but Pearce was fairly sure that wasn't the problem with King.

"He doesn't know anything useful," Pearce said.

_"I figured," _she remarked. She paused, clearly to think something through, not quite sure if she wanted to share it with Pearce so he left her to it. Eventually, she said, _"I got attacked today." _

"Attacked?"

_"By Victoria Vanna. She's…" _

"I know who she is," Pearce growled.

_"If you feel like shooting some more snuff, be my guest." _

"She's still alive?"

_"She escaped. I visited her in her club, the Qube. I was _sure _she was reliable. It turns out she's been feeding information about our operations to the cops. We could track them yet, but given the number of raids we'd had, it's safe to assume she's a snitch." _

Vanna was fairly high on his list, he wouldn't mind going after her, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to do it at Heather Quinn's say-so.

_"You said you got something." _

"I'm not sure if it'll pan out, but I've been going over the phones of the men who attacked us in the warehouse and killed Roche. They've been playing a Digital Trip called 'Unmade'."

_"That's all you have? Some VR drug?" _

"It's exactly what we're looking for. Something capable of altering the way a person thinks. It's not Bellwether, at least I couldn't find any indication for it and Bellwether couldn't do this anyway. I need more time to make sure, but it fits."

Heather was silent for a long time.

Pearce said, "I already checked Iain, he's clear. Get him to send me a list of your hackers, I'll check them out and then let them look into your people one by one."

_"You want access to the names of my people?" _she asked.

"It's possible to write a virus to check for the data, but it'll take time for it to spread to all the phones, if you want to know going in who you're dealing with, you'll have to do it the hard way."

Again Heather took her time with answering. She suspected he had bigger plans for the names he'd asked of her and he saw no reason to try and lie about it. She wouldn't believe him and access to this kind of inside information would be invaluable down the line.

_"I'll get it done," _she finally said.

"I'm also working on a way to track actual Bratva members. I'll know where Grisha is hiding soon."

Another pause and her voice changed almost imperceptible.

_"You should come and see me," _she said. _"We have plans to make."_

* * *

_End of _Perfect Play – Part 3_


End file.
